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How  TO  Educate  Yourself.- 


WITH  OR  WITHOUT  MASTERS. 


GEO.     GARY     EGGLESTON. 


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G.    P.    PUTNAM'S    SONS 

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STATE  NORiflAL  SCHOOL. 

Los  Angeles,  C'.[ 


PREFACE. 


In  preparing  this  little  book,  I  have  done  the  work 
conscientiously,  whether  it  shall  prove  to  be  well  or  ill 
done. 

In  every  matter  treated,  I  have  given  the  advice  I 
should  give  to  a  son  or  a  brother — drawing  my  mate- 
rials from  every  available  source. 

The  narrow  Umits  of  the  volume  have  compelled  me 
to  speak  ex  cathedra  in  many  cases  when  I  should  have 
preferred  to  reverently  cite  authority,  or  to  carefully 
state  to  the  reader  the  premises  from  which  my  con- 
clusions were  drawn. 

If  I  have  spoken  dogmatically,  however,  I  would  have 
the  student  remember  that  the  whole  spirit  of  my 
teaching  is  that  he  should  never  accept  blindly  the 
authority  of  any  man  or  of  any  book,  and  to  this  rule 
my  own  little  volume  certainly  does  not  claim  to  be  an 
exception. 

Bbooklyn,  Sq^temoer,  1872.  G.  0.  E. 


C0NTEN18, 


INTEODUOTIOK. 

vhom 

Teee  Naiube  and  Fubfoss  of  the  Book 1 

CHAPTEii   L    . 

HO-W  TO  MASK  OUT  A  COUBSE  OF  8TUDT. 

What  to  study — A  Common  Error 6 

What  then,  should  be  the  Student's  Course  ? 8 

What  are  the  Purposes  of  Education  ? 8 

The  Comparative  Values  of  Various  Studies 10 

Herbert  Spencer's  Classification 10 

The  Factors  involved 11 


CHAPTEK   n. 

COMMON  SCHOOL  STUDIES. 

The  "Waste  of  Time 15 

Of  Geography 15 

How  to  study  Geography 16 

Arithmetic 17 

The  Study  of  English 23 

The  Failure  of  the  Grammars 24 


VI  CONTENTS. 

FAGB 

How  to  study  Grammar 26 

Prouuiacjation 27 

Spelliug 27 

Learniug  the  Meanings  of  Words 30 

The  Structure  of  Sentences 32 

Higher  English 34 


CHAPTEE   m. 

aOlJuE.QIATE  ST0DIB8. 

What  to  study 42 

The  Scientists  and  the  Classicists 44 

The  Question  to  be  decided 47 


CHAPTEE    IV. 

THE  STDDY  OF  LANQUAOES. 

The  Comparative  Values  of  Languages 49 

The  Comparative  Difi&culty  of  learning  them 50 

How  to  study  Languages 51 

The  Group  System 52 

M.  Marcel's  System 53 

How  to  learn  to  read  a  Language 54 

The  Time  necessary 63 

Learning  to  understand  the  spoken  Tongue 64 

Learning  to  speak  the  Language 70 

The  Eobertsonian  System 72 

CHAPTEE   V. 

THE  HIOHEB  MATHEMATICS. 

The  Nature  and  Value  of  Mathematical  Study 75 

The  Processes 77 

The  Order  of  Studies 77 

The  Way  to  study  Algebra 79 

A.  Way  out  of  Difficulties 80 

Another  Way  out  of  Difficulties 81 


CONTENTS.  TU 

rAQH 

Rules 82 

The  other  Mathematics 83 

CHAPTER   VI. 

PHYSICAL  SCIEKCB. 

What  Physics  to  study 88 

The  Object  sought 89 

How  to  study  Physics 89 


CHAPTER   Vn. 

MOEAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL   SCIENOE. 

The  Value  of  this  kind  of  Study 93 

The  Cause  of  the  Mistake 93 

The  Value  of  these  Studies  as  a  Means  of  Culture 94 

Their  Value  as  a  Preparation  for  other  Study 95 

The  Practical  Wisdom  of  their  Teachings 96 

The  Order  and  Methods  of  Study 99 

CHAPTER   Vm. 

GENXSAL  SEADIXG. 

Some  Words  of  warning 104 

An  Exception 107 

What  to  read, 107 

Courses  of  Reading 110 

Some  Good  Rules 112 

Reading  up 113 

Reading  to  cure  Defects 114 

Reading  to  strengthen  Strong  Points 114 

Reading  both  Sides 115 

How  Much  of  a  Book  to  read 115 

Reading  about  Books 117 

Dangerous  Reading 118 

A  Schedule  of  Reading-matter 121 

Novel-reading .   .  122 

The  Reading  of  History 123 


Vm  CONTENTS.     " 

FAOl 

Poetry 126 

Biography,  etc 127 

Dicfioimries  as  Eeadiug-matter 129 

CHAPTEE   IX. 

HOW  TO   STtlDY  AND   BEAD   TO    THE  BEST  ADTANTAOE. 

A  Practical  Education 132 

Economy  of  Time 133 

Wtat  to  do  -with  the  Memory 134 

How  to  cultivate  the  Memory 136 

Things  that  impair  the  Memory 136 

Memorandum  Books,  etc 139 

Mechanical  Mem  ry 141 

When  to  read 142 

How  much  to  read 142 

The  proper  Time  of  Day  for  reading  and  study 143 

rhougbt-study 144 

The  Apportiojoment  of  Time 148 

How  Many  Studies  should  be  carried  on  at  once .  150 


ERRATUM. 


On  p.  52,  IL  Marcel's  work  is  said  to  be  out  of  print.  This,  it 
appears,  is  not  now  the  case,  as  the  book  is  rucladed  in  Mosns. 
D.  Appleton  &  Co.'s  Catalogue. 


HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 


INTEODUCTION. 

THE  NATXTBE  AND   PUBPOSE    OF   THE  BOOK. 

Lest  the  purpose  and  meaning  of  this  manual 
shall  be  misunderstood,  let  me  say  at  the  outset  that 
I  have  no  patent  system  of  easy  education  to  present. 
I  can  point  out  no  "  royal  road  to  learning,"  for  the 
reason  that  there  is  none,  and  in  the  very  nature  of 
things  there  never  can  be  one. 

And  yet  the  sole  purpose  of  this  volume  is  to  make 
the  road  to  learning  and  culture  somewhat  easier  than 
it  is,  particularly  in  the  case  of  students  who  have  no 

v^   master. 

\       Every  educated  man  is,  in  some  sense,  self-educated. 

^    No  teacher,  whatever  his  abilities  may  be,  can  force  an 

li  education  upon  an  unwilling  pupiL  Furthermore,  no 
teacher  can  educate  a  persistently  idle  pupil.  He  can 
bridge  over  difficulties  ;  he  can  point  out  the  way  ;  he 
can  advise  and  direct ;  he  can  stimulate  the  student  to 
activity  ;  but  the  real  work  must  be  done  by  the  stU' 
dent  himself,  if  it  be  done  at  all. 

There  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  regular  teachers 
and  regular  schools  are  necessary  to  some  students  and 


2  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOUKSELF. 

very  valuable  to  all,  and  I  have  no  sympathy  whatever 
with  the  prevalent  cant  which  teaches  that  the  men 
commonly  called  "  self-made  "  ai'e  gi-eater,  or  better,  or 
wiser  than  those  whose  acquirements  and  culture  have 
been  obtained  thi'ough  more  regular  channels.  Dr. 
Franklin  was  a  wise  man  and  an  able  one,  and  Mr. 
Greeley  has  achieved  a  grand  success  in  his  profession. 
Ehhu  Bui-ritt  learned  a  good  deal  about  languages 
while  yet  at  the  forge,  and  Eobert  Collyer  has  not  for- 
gotten how  to  make  a  horse-shoe  while  he  has  been 
learning  how  to  preach  an  eloquent  sermon.  But  all 
these  men,  and  others  like  them,  would  have  been  even 
more  successful,  or  at  any  rate  their  success  would 
have  come  to  them  earlier  in  life,  if  they  had  had  the 
advantages  of  a  regular  training.  The  mistake  com- 
monly made  is  that  of  attributing  their  greatness  to 
their  want  of  schooling,  when  in  point  of  fact  they  are 
great  in  spite  of  that  want,  because  they  have  by  uutii-- 
ing  industry  supphed  the  defect,  doing  without  teachers 
that  which  they  could  have  done  much  more  easily  and 
much  more  perfectly  with  them.  Hugh  Miller  wrought 
out  his  knowledge  of  geology  from  the  rocks  in  which 
he  worked  as  a  craftsman  ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that 
the  best  road  to  geological  lore  lies  through  the  busi- 
ness of  a  quarrj'man  or  a  stonecutter. 

Let  no  student  delude  himself  with  the  idea  that  he 
is  above  the  need  of  instructors.  If  he  can  attend 
good  schools  he  should  do  so  by  all  means,  and  hia 
education  so  acquu-ed  will  be  much  more  satisfactory, 
much  more  perfectly  rounded  than  it  ever  could  be 
otherwise. 

But  if  attendance  upon  school  instruction  be  impos- 
sible, or  if  the  student  be  cut  short  in  it,  there  is  no  oc- 


THE  NATURE  AND  PURPOSE  OF  THE  BOOK.  3 

casion  for  him  to  despair,  or  to  abandon  the  work  of 
educating  himself.  If  he  is  to  be  educated  at  all,  he 
must  educate  himself  in  any  case,  and  while  the  task 
would  be  much  easier  in  school  than  out,  it  is  not  im- 
possible of  accomplishment  wholly  without  teachers. 

The  chief  service  which  a  teacher  is  called  upon  to 
render  an  earnest  student,  is  that  of  guiding  and  di- 
recting his  studies  ;  advising  him  what  branches  to 
pursue,  and  how  to  follow  them  with  the  best  results. 
And  herein  lies  the  chief  advantage  which  the  earnest 
student  in  school  has  over  the  earnest  student  out  of 
school.  The  one  has  his  course  marked  out  for  him, 
and  is  instructed  carefully  in  the  readiest  and  surest 
means  of  mastering  it.  The  othgr  must  mark  out  his 
own  course,  with  such  advice  as  he  can  get,  and  must 
pursue  it  after  methods  of  his  own  devising,  for  the 
most  part.  Again,  the  one  has,  presumably,  more  time 
at  his  disposal,  and  better  facilities  every  way,  than  the 
other,  and  therefore  has  less  need  to  know  how  to 
economize  his  time  closely  in  the  selection  and  pursuit 
of  his  studies. 

It  is  to  cure  preqisely  these  defects  that  this  book  is, 
in  the  main,  designed.  My  purpose  is  to  supply,  as  far 
as  possible,  the  place  of  a  teacher  to  teacherless  stu- 
dents, guiding  them  to  a  proper  selection  of  subjects 
for  study,  and  suggesting  the  best  methods  of  pursuing 
each. 

To  this  end  I  shall  make  free  use  of  other  people's 
experience,  as  well  as  my  own,  giving  that  which  seema 
to  me  best,  m  every  case,  whether  the  idea  be  new  or 
old,  my  own  or  some  other  person's.  Tlie  plan  of  the 
book  is  a  simple  one.  Each  class  of  study  will  be  ex- 
amined as  to  its  nature,  its  value,  the  peculiar  advan- 


4  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

tages  arising  from  the  information  contained  in  it,  and 
from  the  culture  it  brings.  Its  difficulty,  and  all  other 
circumstances  bearing  upon  the  student's  selection,  wiL\ 
be  placed  fau-ly  before  him,  so  that  he  may  choose  ad- 
visedly the  branches  to  which  he  will  give  his  atten- 
tion. 

After  this,  in  each  case,  the  best  methods  of  pursu- 
ing the  study  will  be  given,  together  with  such  other 
hints,  suggestions  and  warnings  as  every  earnest  and 
competent  teacher  finds  frequent  occasion  to  give. 

In  regard  to  reading  and  study  outside  of  text-books, 
a  similar  plan  will  be  pursued.  I  shall  endeavor  to 
guide  the  student  in  the  selection  of  his  literature  by 
pointing  out  the  natm*e  and  value  of  different  classes 
of  books,  the  kind  of  culture  and  the  kind  of  informa- 
tion each  gives,  and  to  prepare  him,  as  far  as  practica- 
ble, to  make  a  judicious  selection  and  arrangement  of 
his  reading  matter  for  himself. 

The  book,  as  will  be  seen  at  a  glance,  is  intended 
principally  for  students  who  must  educate  themselves 
outside  of  schools  and  colleges  ;  but  I  am  persuaded 
that  even  students  whose  advantages  are  of  the  best, 
will  find  many  things  to  help  them  in  these  pages,  and 
I  write  with  the  hope  that  my  little  book  will  supply 
to  this  class  of  students  a  kind  of  guidance  of  which  I 
myself  often  felt  the  need  both  in  school  and  at  college. 

A  work  of  this  kind  must,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
be  very  imperfect,  because  of  the  narrowness  of  its 
limits,  if  for  no  other  reason  ;  but  having  had  frequent 
occasion  to  counsel  and  aid  persons  engaged  in  the 
work  of  self-education,  I  come  to  the  task  now,  know- 
ing pretty  well  the  nature  of  the  difficulties  which  be- 


THE  NATURE  AND    PURPOSE  OF  THE  BOOK.  5 

set  this  class  of  students.  If  the  pages  which  follow 
shall  be  found  to  supply  to  them  at  all  adequately  the 
guidance  and  counsel  they  need,  I  shall  be  abundantly 
satisfied. 


CHAPTER  I. 

BOW   TO    ilABK    OUT   A    COURSE    OI'    STUDY. 

"WHAT   TO   STUDY. 

The  first  point  to  be  decided  in  beginning  every  edu- 
cation is  what  to  study.  The  student  who  can  go  to 
school  and  to  college  has  the  question  answered  for 
him,  though  not  always  wisely  ;  but  he  who  must  de- 
cide it  for  himself,  is  usually  puzzled  by  the  multiplicity 
of  possible  studies,  and  by  his  ignorance  both  of  their 
character  and  of  his  own  wants.  And  yet  it  is  of  the 
utmost  importance  that  he  should  decide  this  question 
correctly.  An  error  here  is  always  serious,  and  some- 
times the  failure  to  master  a  badly-chosen  subject  leada 
to  the  abandonment  of  all  effort  in  despair. 

A   COMMON   ERROR. 

It  is  a  common  error  of  people  studying  without  a 
teacher  to  suppose  that  they  must  follow  the  coui'se  of 
the  schools,  taking  not  only  every  subject,  but  every 
text-book,  in  the  order  of  school  arrangement.  To  see 
the  folly  of  ibis  it  is  only  necessary  to  remember  that 
the  student  without  a  master  has  less  time  than  the 
schoolboy  to  give  to  study,  (else  he  might  himself  go 


now  TO  MAEK  OUT  A  COURSE  OF  STUDY.     7 

to  school,)  and  that  his  progress  will  naturally  be  some- 
what slower  than  that  of  the  pupils  for  whom  the 
school  course  is  intended,  aided  as  they  are  by  system- 
atic instruction.  Besides  all  this,  there  is  a  great  deal 
of  time  consumed  in  the  schools  over  exercises  that  are 
certainly  not  necessary  or  even  useful  to  an  earnest  stu- 
dent, so  resolved  upon  securing  an  education  as  to  un- 
dertake it  without  the  ordinary  helps.  This  is  due 
partly  perhaps  to  the  fact  that  there  are  idle  pupils  in 
every  school  whose  first  need  is  to  be  made  active  in 
study,  even  if  it  be  done  by  otherwise  useless  exer- 
cises ;  but  much  more  lar-gely,  doubtless,  to  the  want  of 
judicious  condensation  in  the  text-boolis.  The  best- 
cultivated  men  in  America,  for  instance,  unless  their 
avocations  lead  them  to  make  geographical  study  a  spe- 
cialty, do  not  remember  enough  of  their  bulky,  grad- 
ed school  text-books  on  the  subject,  to  fill  more  than  a 
score  of  these  pages.  They  remember  all  that  is  worth 
remembering.  They  know  all  the  leading  facts,  per- 
haps, but  these  might  have  been  written  in  the  smallest 
of  school-books  and  learned  in  a  few  weeks,  while  every 
schoolboy  plods  for  years  through  volume  after  volume 
full  of  petty  geographical  details  of  no  consequence  in 
themselves,  never  remembered,  and  certainly  not  worth 
the  learning  to  a  young  man  who  has  his  education  to 
get  without  assistance  from  others.  And  the  same 
thing  is  true  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  of  almost  every 
other  branch  of  school  study.  The  school  course  is  in- 
tended for  pupils  who  have  time  and  opportunity  to 
master  it.  It  has  much  that  is  almost  wholly  useless  in 
it,  and  it  is  certainly  not  suited,  as  a  whole,  to  students 
who  must  be  their  own  teachers. 


HOW  TO   EDUCATE  YOUESELF. 


WHAT   THEN,  SHOULD   BE    THE   STUDENt's   COURSE  ? 

Certainly  not  tlie  same  in  every  case  ;  hardly  the 
same  in  any  two  cases.  The  question  is  one  that  must 
be  decided  with  reference  to  the  age,  capacity  and  cir- 
cumstances of  each  individual.  The  one  who  has 
hardly  any  leisure  cannot  master  many  things,  and  his 
slender  list  of  studies  should  embrace  only  the  ones 
most  desirable  for  him  to  follow,  while  his  fellow,  whose 
leisure  is  more  abundant,  should  make  use  of  it  in  pur- 
suing a  wider  coui'se.  It  is  very  true  that  in  all  know- 
ledge there  is  profit,  but  all  knowledge  is  not  equally 
profitable,  and  the  man  whose  education  must  be  a  par- 
tial one  at  best,  should  aim  to  make  it  embrace  such 
parts  of  the  whole  as  will  best  serve  the  purposes  of 
education  in  his  particular  case.  And  to  enable  us  to 
ascertain  what  will  do  this,  it  is  necessary  that  we  shall 
inquire  at  the  outset — 

WHAT   ARE   THE   PURPOSES   OF   EDUCATION? 

Different  people  have  different  ideas  of  life,  and  ac- 
cordingly they  pursue  their  studies  with  all  kinds  of  ends 
in  view.  Men  sometimes  work  pretty  dihgently  over 
their  books,  with  no  higher  motive  than  a  desire  to 
make  a  creditable  appearance  in  society.  Young  peo- 
ple often  have  an  ambition  to  appear  learned  with  no 
great  desire  to  be  so,  and  so  seek  just  enough  of  erudi- 
tion to  enable  them  to  talk  of  things  they  know  very 
httle  about,  as  if  they  understood  them. 

But  education  has  two  definite  purposes  to  serve, 
and  one  or  both  of  these  should  be  in  the  mind  of  the 
student  from  first  to  last.     The  object  most  commonly 


HOW  TO  MARK  OUT  A  COURSE   OF  STUDY.  9 

Bought  by  the  student  is  practical  Utihty.  He  studies 
because  learning  and  the  intellectual  culture  it  brings 
with  it  are  things  that  have  a  market  value  ;  because  an 
educated  man  can  make  money  more  readily  and  more 
surely  than  an  uneducated  one  can  ;  because  his  educa- 
tion will  open  up  to  him  more  agreeable  business  pur- 
suits than  an  untaught  man  can  follow.  To  a  certain 
extent  every  man  in  this  busy  country  of  ours  is  in^ 
fluenced  by  these  considerations.  We  have  no  recog- 
nized aristocracy,  and  no  entailed  estates,  and  therefore 
no  man,  among  us,  can  be  sure  in  advance  that  he  will 
never  need  to  make  his  own  way  in  the  world. 

With  the  people  for  whose  benefit  chiefly  I  write, 
those  who  are  compelled  to  educate  themselves  without 
teachers,  the  practical  utility  of  education  is  often  oi 
course  the  main  consideration  ;  but  even  these  would  do 
well  to  keep  before  them  the  higher  pui'pose  of  culture, 
which  is  to  fit  the  man  for  his  most  perfect  work  in  life, 
to  make  him,  as  nearly  as  his  natural  capacity  will  allow, 
a  completely  cultuved  man,  balanced,  trained  to  the  use 
of  all  his  faculties  and  able  to  command  their  highest 
and  best  exercise  at  will.  That  even  people  without 
the  advantages  of  academic  training  may  accomplish 
something  like  this  is  sufldciently  seen  in  the  fact  that 
the  present  editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  a  scholar,  a 
poet,  an  author  and  a  critic,  with  certainly  very  few  if 
any  superiors  in  America,  in  the  matter  of  refined  and 
varied  culture,  left  school  to  learn  a  trade  at  the  age  of 
ten,  and  has  never  had  a  master  since. 

Everybody  is  not  a  JMr.  Howells,  however,  and  few 
young  men  can  hope  to  accomplish  all  that  he  has  ;  but 
failing  in  that,  it  is  well  that  the  student  shall  feel  the 
high  possibilities  of  his  life  and  appreciate  the  nobler 


10  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOUESELP. 

purposes  of  bis  A\'oik.  While  he  labors  to  fit  himseli 
for  his  business,  he  will  work  none  the  less  earnestly 
for  feeling  that  his  study  is  making  him  more  and 
more  the  man  nature  intended  that  he  should  be. 

THE   COMPAKA-nVE   VALUES   OF   VARIOUS   STUDIES. 

Whether  the  student  contemplates  a  brief  course  or 
an  extended  one,  it  is  equally  necessary  for  him  to  se- 
lect his  studies  with  reference  first  to  their  comparative 
intrinsic  values,  and  secondly  with  reference  to  their 
comparative  values  to  him  individually.  To  do  this  in- 
telligently he  must  bear  in  mind  that  there  are  two  dis- 
tinct uses  of  study.  The  first  of  these  is  the  acquisition 
of 'knowledge,  and  the  second  is  intellectual  training. 

Each  is  good  in  its  kind.  Each  has  a  practical  value. 
The  man  who  knows  arithmetic  finds  daily  use  for  the 
mere  knowledge  he  has  gained,  in  all  the  affiiirs  of  life. 
But  the  value  of  the  mental  discipline  he  has  received 
in  the  study  of  arithmetic,  while  it  may  be  less  appa- 
rent, is  no  less  real  than  the  other.  And  this  is  true 
too  of  every  other  branch  of  a  well-ordered  education. 
Each  is  doubly  useful.  Each  helps  to  train  the  mind 
to  proper  action,  and  each  furnishes  some  knowledge 
which  is  of  use  in  itself.  But  all  are  not  equally  valua- 
ble in  either  of  these  ways,  and  the  proportion  of  time 
and  attention  to  be  given  to  each  should  be  regulated 
with  reference  to  their  comparatire  importance. 

HERBERT   SPENCEr's   CLASSIFICATION. 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  in  his  work  on  education,  has 
attempted  to  make  an  elaborate  classificat'on  of  the  va- 
rious subjects  of  study,  and  to  arrange  them  in  the  order 


HOW  TO  MARK  OUT  A  COURSE  OF  STUDY.  11 

of  their  relative  comparative  importance,  a  task  that  he 
is  as  well  qualified  as  anybody  else,  perhaps,  to  perform, 
but  one  in  which  even  he  has  only  partially  succeeded. 
Such  a  classification  in  a  manual  like  this,  intended 
mainly  for  students  without  masters,  would  be  mani- 
festly impracticable,  and  hence  nothing  of  the  kind  is 
attempted.  I  prefer  to  ofier  some  plain  suggestions 
which  will  aid  the  student  to  ascertain  for  himseK  just 
what  he  wants. 

THE   FACTOKS   INVOLVED. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  it  is  necessary  to  take  into  ac- 
count your  age  and  whatever  other  circumstances  there 
may  be  which  tend  to  Hmit  you  in  point  of  time. 

If  you  are  already  grown,  with  the  cares  of  business 
about  you,  your  time  for  self-education  is  necessarily 
very  limited,  and  your  selection  of  studies  must  of 
course  be  made  with  reference  to  this  fact,  so  that  you 
may  not  sjjend  any  portion  of  your  scanty  leisure  upon 
that  which  is  not  absolutely  essential.  Take  an  inveu- 
toi'y  of  the  time  at  your  disposal,  as  you  would  of  your 
capital  before  entering  upon  business,  in  order  that  you 
may  invest  it  wisely. 

It  is  next  necessary  to  ask  youi'self  what  your  practi- 
cal necessities  are  in  the  matter  of  learning  ;  what  your 
business  in  life  is,  or  is  to  be  ;  what  information  you 
will  especially  need  in  that  business,  and  what  studies 
will  give  you  the  necessary  knowledge.  And  this  is 
clearly  a  point  worthy  of  attention  in  any  case,  whether 
the  education  is  to  be  abundant  or  scanty.  To  the  man 
who  intends  to  make  himself  a  physician,  for  instance, 
a  knowledge  of  chemistry  is  of  prime  importance, 
while  th'e  higher  mathematics  farnish  him  very  httle  of 


12  HOW  TO   EDUCATE   YOUKSELF. 

any  immediate  value.  To  the  one  who  would  be  au  en* 
giueer,  on  the  other  hand,  mathematics  is  the  one  thing 
especially  needful.  I  am  speaking  now  with  reference 
solely  to  the  value  of  the  information  gained  in  these 
studies,  and  not  of  their  value  as  intellectual  exercises. 
Decide  then,  secondly,  what  you  want  in  the  matter  of 
learning — what  studies  will  give  you  the  information 
you  most  need  for  the  accomphshment  of  your  ends, 
whatever  these  may  be. 

The  third  point  to  be  determined  in  settling  upon  a 
course  of  study  is  more  difficult,  and  in  the  very  nature 
of  things  can  never  be  very  accurately  decided  in  the  be- 
ginning by  the  student  himself.  Simply  stated,  the 
question  is,  "  What  mental  disciphne  do  I  need  ?"  and 
it  is  one  which  should  recur  at  every  step  of  the  stu- 
dent's progress.  It  is  one  which  every  cultivated  man 
asks  himself  constantly.  It  governs  the  already  accom- 
pHshed  scholar  in  the  selection  of  his  books  for  reading 
even  more  than  it  influences  the  student  in  marking  out 
his  course  of  study,  and  it  can  never  be  wholly  deter- 
mined in  advance.  Just  here  comes  in  the  higher  pur- 
pose of  education,  the  making  of  a  well-balanced  man. 
It  is  the  training  of  all  che  faculties  to  their  fullest  capa- 
city, the  development  of  all  the  forces,  the  just  subjec- 
tion of  each  to  the  whole,  that  fits  the  man  tor  his  most 
perfect  work,  and  most  completely  fullills  the  pur^Dose 
of  education;  and  the  nearer  we  come  to  this  ideal  con- 
dition of  perfect  and  symmetrical  development,  in  body, 
mind  ^nd  morals,  the  better  are  we  prepared  for  the 
successful  pursuit  of  our  especial  businesses  iu  life. 

But  aside  from  this,  in  nearly  every  profession  and 
trade  there  exists  a  necessity  for  mental  discipline  in 
specific  directions.     A.  special  intellectual   development 


HOW  TO  MAKE  OUT  A  COURSE  OF  STUDY.  13 

is  of  practical  value,  just  as  the  possession  of  a  partic- 
ular kind  of  information  is,  and  to  this  extent  the  espe« 
cial  needs  of  the  student  in  the  matter  of  intellectual 
culture  as  a  preparation  for  a  specific  business  career 
may  be  decided  in  advance  with  tolerable  accuracy.  In 
a  large  degree,  indeed,  the  culture  made  necessary  by 
merely  economic  considerations  depends  upon  the 
character  of  the  student  himself.  If  he  be  of  dreamy 
mood,  visionary,  absent,  lacking  control  of  his  intellect- 
ual operations,  the  mathematics  and  the  physical 
sciences  wiU  tend  of  course  to  correct  the  fault,  and 
will  have  a  value  to  him  which  they  would  otherwise 
lack.  And  so  with  every  other  branch  of  study.  Each 
may  serve  to  correct  some  intellectual  fault,  to  supply 
an  intellectual  want,  or  to  strengthen  the  man  in  a 
point  of  weakness.  And  in  deciding  what  and  how 
much  to  study,  reference  must  of  course  be  had  to  the 
peculiar  intellectual  needs  that  are  to  be  supplied.  Let 
the  student,  then,  after  he  has  taken  a  fair  inventory  of 
the  time  at  his  disposal,  ask  himself — 

1st.    What  knoivledge  do  I  most  need  ? 

'2nd.    What  culture  do  I  most  need  ? 

And  when  he  shall  have  answered  these  questions,  his 
way  will  be  clear  to  the  marking  out  of  a  course  of 
study  suited  to  his  especial  case. 

But  let  him  remember  that  in  all  knowledge  there  is 
profit,  and  that  the  wider  his  cultui'e  is,  the  more  Dearly 
he  will  come  to  the  perfection  of  manhood  at  which  he 
should  aim,  the  better  prepared  he  will  be  to  do  his 
best  work.  While  he  must  consider  first  his  actual  and 
immediate  educational  wants,  he  should  never  lose 
sight  of  the  fact  that  the  course  of  study  he  has 
marked  out  for  himself  will  supply  these  but  imper- 


14  1[0W  TO  EDUCATE  TOUIISELF. 

fectlj,  and  that  other  knowledge  and  other  ciiltnre  are 
desii-able,  not  only  in  a  general  way,  but  also  as  bear- 
ing directly  upon  his  success  in  life.  With  this  in  view 
he  will  find  abundant  opportunity,  while  pursuing  his 
prescribed  course  of  study  and  reading,  to  widen  it 
somewhat  at  times;  and  by  some  of  the  modes  of  econ- 
omizing time  and  labor  suggested  elsewhere  in  this  vol- 
ume, he  may  almost  certainly  enlarge  the  range  of  both 
the  information  and  the  culture  he  has  prescribed  for 
himself. 

For  the  sake  of  convenience  let  me  briefly  sum  up 
the  spii'it  of  what  I  have  said  thus  far,  in  dii'ect  sen- 
tences : 

Take  an  inventory  of  the  time  at  your  disposal,  that 
you  may  know  how  much  you  can  dudy. 

Do  not  attempt  too  much,  lest  you  become  discouraged 
and  fail  altogether. 

On  the  other  hand,  remember  that  within  the  limits 
imposed  by  your  circumstances,  the  more  you  shall  mas- 
ter the  better  educated  you  will  be. 

Select  your  studies  with  reference  first  to  the  value  of 
the  learning  they  vrill  give  you,  and  secondly  to  the  value 
of  the  culture  their  mastery  will  bring. 

Give  the  preference  to  those  branches  which  unll  tend 
most  directly  to  fit  you  for  your  special  busii^ess,  bid 
enlarge  your  culture  and  information  as  opportunity  shall 
offer. 

Siich  are  the  general  principles  that  should  guide  the 
student  in  marking  out  his  course  of  study,  and  to  a 
large  extent  each  must  apply  them  for  himself  ;  but 
some  more  specific  directions  may  be  of  service,  and  in 
fulfillment  of  my  design  to  make  this  manual  as  lai-gelj 
useful  as  possible,  I  give  them  in  their  proper  places. 


CHAPTER    n. 

COMMON  SCHOOL    STCDLES. 

THE    WASTE   OF   TIME. 

It  is  a  singular  fact,  perhaps,  but  a  fact  nevertheless 
which  everybody  except  the  teachers  themselves  recog- 
nizes, that  there  is  a  larger  proportion  of  useless  work 
expended  in  the  common  sehools  than  anywhere  else. 
Many  of  the  branches  taught  there  are  wholly  useless 
in  themselves,  and  nearly  all  the  others  are  so  overload- 
ed with  unimportant  details  that  the  pupil  loses  sight 
of  their  real  purpose  and  quits  them  at  last,  wearied 
with  misspent  labor,  having  gained  but  little  of  the  in- 
formation or  culture  they  should  have  brought  him. 

OF  GEOGRAPHY 

I  have  already  spoken.  Pupils  spend  years  in  study- 
ing text-books  not  one  tenth  part  of  which  is  worth 
learning,  while  not  one  twentieth  of  their  contents  is 
ever  remembered.  As  soon  as  the  examinations  are 
over  the  student  begins  to  forget — forgetting  much 
more  rapidly  than  he  learned — and  in  forgetting,  he 
sometimes  loses  the  useful  with  the  useless  parts. 

Clearly  there  is  too  much  geography  taught.     The 
books  are  too  large  and  too  numerous.   They  have  alto- 


16  HOW  TO   EDUCATE   YOURSELF. 

gether  too  many  details  in  them,  and  moreover,  no 
book  whatever  is  necessary  to  the  learning  of  all  that 
anybody  except  a  professional  geographer  or  a  naviga- 
tor needs  to  know  of  geography,  A  brief  examination 
of  the  globes  and  a  few  weeks'  earnest  study  of  good 
maps  will  serve  to  give  the  student  a  fair  general  know- 
ledge of  geography,  and  this  is  all  that  anybody  not 
professionally  pursuing  geographical  studies  ever  re- 
members or  needs  to  remember.  Reference  to  a  map  is 
always  readily  made  when  fuller  information  on  any 
particular  point  is  wanted,  just  as  reference  to  a  dic- 
tionary or  encyclopsedia  is,  and  to  attempt  to  learn  and 
remember  all  the  facts  of  geography  in  detail  is  almost 
as  absurd  as  it  wouJd  be  to  commit  an  unabridged  dic- 
tionary to  memory  as  au  introduction  to  English. 

HOW   TO   STUDY    GEOGRAPHY. 

I  say,  therefore,  to  the  student  without  a  master, 
waste  no  time  in  the  study  of  geographies.  Learn  the 
general  outhnes  and  relative  locahties  of  seas  and  con- 
tinents by  examining  the  globe,  and  then  give  yourself 
to  a  progressive  study  of  maps  until  you  are  familiar 
with  the  chief  facts  of  geography — that  is  to  say,  till 
you  know  the  relative  localities  and  the  general  outlines 
of  all  the  countries,  the  nationality  and  general  features 
of  the  chief  rivers,  ranges  of  mountains,  etc.,  and  the 
places  of  the  world's  great  cities,  etc.,  on  the  maps. 

Take  fii-st  a  general  map  of  each  continent ;  then  one  of 
each  country  ;  and  finish  your  study  of  the  subject  by  a 
careful  scrutiny  of  the  State  and  local  maps  of  your 
own  countr}'.  When  you  shall  have  done  this  you  will 
have  a  good  general  knowledge  of  geography,  and  very 


COMMON  SCHOOL  STUDIES.  17 

few  people  bavo  more  tbau  this,  or  need  more.  An  oc- 
casional reference  to  good  maps,  afterwards  will  perserve 
and  greatly  add  to  the  information  thus  gained. 

ARITHMETIC, 

of  course,  everybody  needs  to  know,  and  it  cannot 
be  learned  too  thoroughly.  But  in  the  ordinary  way 
of  teaching  and  learning  it,  a  good  deal  of  time  is  wasted, 
and  the  best  results  are  rarely  secured.  There  is  a 
good  deal  of  unnecessary  matter  in  the  text-books,  and 
that  which  is  necessary  is  too  often  so  put  as  to  lead 
the  student  to  lose  sight  of  its  proper  purpose,  and 
thus  lose  the  advantage  he  should  gain  from  its  study. 
Let  the  student  bear  in  mind  from  first  to  last  that 
everything  in  Mathematics  is  fact ;  that  every  fact 
there  has  been  discovered  and  nothing  invented.  Let 
him  remember  that  what  are  commonly  called  rules  are 
not  rules  at  all,  but  that  each  is  merely  a  statement  of 
one  of  the  ways  in  which  certain  principles  may  be 
applied  to  the  solution  of  certain  classes  of  problems, 
and  that  more  than  one  of  these  principles  may  be  used 
in  almost  every  case.  Let  me  explain  this  a  little 
more  at  length.  The  student  finds  many  pages  de- 
voted to  common  fractions,  and  a  like  number  to  deci- 
mals. Under  each  head  is  arranged  a  number  of  pro- 
blems, together  with  a  rule  for  woi'king  them.  By  all 
the  arrangements  made  for  him,  by  the  classifications 
of  the  book,  by  the  traditions  of  the  schooh'oom,  and 
by  every  other  direct  and  indirect  means,  he  is  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that  some  of  these  problems  are  of  a 
kind  to  be  solved  by  the  one  rule,  while  the  others  are 
of  a  totally  different  character  and  can  be  wrought  only 
upon  the  other  principle.     Of  course  any  teacher,  upon 


18  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

being  qiaestioncd,  -would  tell  a  student  that  this  is  not 
the  ease ;  but  there  is  really  nothing  in  the  ordinary  way 
of  learning  and  teaching  arithmetic  to  suggest  such 
questioning,  and,  with  one  remarkable  exception,  I 
have  never  known  a  teacher  who  thought  it  necessary 
or  desirable  to  explain  the  point  without  waiting  for 
accident  to  suggest  inquiry  I  would  have  the  student 
remember  constantly  that  Addition,  Subtraction,  Multi- 
phcation  and  Division,  are  the  only  fundamental  rules  of 
arithmetic,  and  that  all  the  others  are  but  applications 
of  these.  He  should  bear  in  mind  also  that  the  various 
problems  given  may  each  be  solved  in  more  than  one 
way — that  their  solution  is  not  the  object  of  his  study  ; 
that  their  solution  is  not  a  matter  of  any  importance 
whatever,  except  as  it  exercises  him  in  the  application 
of  the  principles  involved  and  verifies  the  correctness 
and  accuracy  of  his  understanding.  With  these  points 
estabiished  in  his  mind,  let  him  go  to  work  to  learn 
each  of  the  principles  involved, — that  is  to  say,  let  him 
pass  nothing  that  he  does  not  fully  understand,  let  him 
accept  nothing  as  true  until  he  fully  understands  the 
fact  that  it  is  true,  and  the  reason  why  it  is  true  ;  or,  if 
he  must  pass  it,  let  him  refer  to  it  again  and  again  until 
he  does  understand  it.  He  will  then  need  no  rules,  and 
will  not  be  dependent,  in  after  hfe,  upon  a  fallacious 
memory  for  rules,  which,  even  if  remembered  correctly, 
might  readily  be  misapplied  by  one  who  had  failed  to 
master  the  principles  involved. 

Teachers  sometimes  tell  pupils  all  this,  and  some  of 
them  succeed  in  impressing  the  fact  ujjou  the  minds 
of  those  under  their  tuition,  but  in  altogether  too  many 
cases  their  system  of  teaching  makes  it  easy  for  the 
parrot  pupil  to  make  a  better  show  than  the  one  whu 


COMMON    SCHOOL  STUDIES.  19 

labors  over  principles,  and  thus  there  is  an  immediate 
aiid  constant  temptation  before  every  piipU  to  do  that 
which  the  teacher  is  continually  cautioning  him 
not  to  do.  On  the  other  hand  there  are  teachers  whose 
indolence  or  incompetence  leads  them  to  omit  even 
the  verbal  caution,  while  the  student  without  a  mas- 
ter stands  in  especial  need  of  the  warning. 

I  I'emember  a  schoolfellow  of  my  own  who  went 
with  me  through  the  arithmetic,  solved  every  pi'oblem, 
knew  every  rule,  and  was  regarded  as  fellow  of  the 
best  of  us.  His  practice  was  to  commit  each  rule  to 
memory,  and  to  follow  it  clause  by  clause  in  the  work- 
ing of  every  problem  under  it.  He  passed  good  exam- 
inations, of  course,  and  afterwards  graduated  well  in  a 
commercial  college.  I  happened  to  be  with  him  ten 
years  later,  when  he  was  attempting  to  fill  the  post  ol 
bill  clerk  in  a  commission  house.  His  calculations  for 
several  days  went  unchallenged,  as  the  booklfeeper 
was  overburdened  with  other  duties  and  supposed  him 
competent.  Before  his  first  week  ended,  however,  he 
came  hurriedly  from  his  desk  to  ask  confidentially 
about  a  point  in  his  practical  arithmetic.  He  had  to 
calculate  the  total  value  of  a  given  number  of  bushels 
of  corn  at  $1.08  per  bushel.  He  had  set  the  figures 
down  in  the  ordinary  way,  had  multiplied  by  the  eight, 
and  now  ,  wanted  to  know  what  to  do  with  the  noujht ! 
Of  course  in  school,  while  his  "  rules  "  were  fresh  in  his 
mind,  no  such  difficulty  had  bothered  him  ;  but  now, 
remembering  no  verbal  rule  for  the  case,  he  was  unable 
to  work  this  simple  problem  in  multiplication.  The 
case  is  an  extreme  one,  doubtless,  but  it  serves  to  illus 
trate  the  importance  of  the  precept  I  am  endeavoring 
to  impress  upon  the  reader.     I  would  have  him  under- 


20  HOW  TO   EDUCATE   YOURSELF. 

stand  each  operation  as  he  makes  it — comprelienrl  each 
principle  before  he  undertakes  to  use  it,  and  know  why 
he  does  each  thing  as  soon  as  he  learns  that  he  is  co  do 
it.  To  do  this  by  means  of  books  only  is  often  diffi- 
cult. The  principles  ai-e  all  explained,  of  course,  in 
every  good  arithmetic,  but  the  explanations  are  not  al- 
ways sufficiently  lucid,  and  the  student  often  falb  into 
the  delusion  of  thinking  that  he  understands  a  matter 
because  he  can  repeat  the  explanation,  even  when  this 
explanation  is  by  no  means  clear  to  his  comprehe?ision. 
To  remedy  this  there  is  nothing  so  good  as  a  resort  to 
object  lessons.  I  have  had  occasion  to  explain  difficul- 
ties of  this  class  to  a  good  many  pupils,  many  of  them 
advanced  far  beyond  the  point  where  the  difficulty  oc- 
curred, and  I  have  found  a  resort  to  the  simplest  lurma 
of  numbers,  and  an  explanation  by  means  of  octuaJ, 
tangible  objects,  far  better  than  anything  else  possible. 

In  one  instance,  I  remember,  a  bright,  keen-witted 
girl  who  was  studying  algebra  came  to  me  for  assist- 
ance. I  explained  the  problem  in  hand  so  that  she 
could  work  it  readily,  but  I  saw  that  she  only  dimly 
comprehended  my  most  labored  explanations  '^f  the 
principles  involved,  and  I  was  not  satisfied  with  this. 
1  questioned  her  to  ascertain  where  her  difficulty  lay, 
and  was  led  presently  to  ask  her  : 

"  Do  you  understand  the  multipUcation  and  division 
of  fractions  ?" 

"  Algebraic  fractions  ?"  she  asked. 

"  Fractions  of  any  kind,"  said  I.  "  Do  you  know, 
for  instance,  why  the  division  of  any  quantity  by  a  frac- 
tion gives  a  result  larger  than  the  dividend  ?" 

"  Ko,"  she  said,  she  had  never  been  able  to  under- 
stand that,  and  although  she  had  gone  conscientiously 


COMMON  SCHOOL  STUDIES.  21 

through  the  arithmetic  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  her 
teachers,  she  had  never  felt  that  she  understood  the 
principles  involved  in  the  working  of  fractions. 

I  took  a  score  of  apples,  and  undertook  to  teach  her 
in  a  single  lesson  w^hat  years  of  schooling  had  left  un- 
taught. 

I  showed  her  how  every  reduction  in  the  size  of  the 
divisor  increased  the  result.  Going  downward  gradu- 
ally, I  reached  one  as  the  divisor,  which  gave,  of 
coursp,  just  twice  as  large  a  result  as  two  had  given. 
Then  with  a  knife  I  made  halves  of  the  apples,  and 
taking  one  of  these  in  my  hand,  as  a  divisor,  I  was 
about  to  continue  the  explanation,  when  she  fairly 
clajDped  her  hands  for  joy.  She  saw  the  principle  and 
underotood  now  not  only  this,  but  every  other  fact  she 
had  .learned  concerning  fractions,  because  she  now 
knew  practically  just  what  fractions  were.  She  at  once 
adopted  the  plan  with  herself,  and  she  has  mastered  the 
higher  mathematics  without  a  teacher,  and  almost  with- 
out a  serious  difficulty. 

I  gxve  the  incident  because  it  illustrates  what  I 
mean,  shows  the  value  of  object-teaching,  and  may 
serve  to  guide  some  teacherless  student  in  making  use 
of  objects  in  working  out  his  own  lessons.* 

The  student  who  thus  masters  every  principle  as  he 
goes  on  will  make  slow  progress,  perhaps,  at  lii'st,  but  in 
doing  chishe  is  laying  a  foundation  for  much  more  rapid 
as  wel'  as  much  more  satisfactory  learning  after  a  little 
while.     As  soon  as  he  clearly  sees  what  figures  mean, 


*  Of  c».  arse  nobody  will  imagiue  for  a  moment  tliat  1  put  this  plan  forward 
as  iu  any  senxe  new.  It  is  only  part  of  tlie  great  systeui  of  object-teauhiag 
kuuwn  t.  every  iutelligeut  iutitructor,  but  used  far  lean  generally  tiiau  it 
Bhuuld  be. 


22         HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

and  learns  to  associate  tliem  with  their  meanings^ 
mathematics  loses  its.  abstract  character,  its  study  be- 
comes an  agreeable  one,  and  the  relations  of  numbers 
to  each  other  become  clear,  unmistakable  facts  to  his 
min-d,  which  he  has  no  difficulty  in  comprehending. 
And  this  relation  of  numbers  to  each  other  is  all  there 
is  of  arithmetic. 

Let  me  add  one  suggestion  which  I  have  found  of  va- 
lue in  a  great  many  cases.  There  is  nothing  so  good  as 
concrete  study,  and  the  student  of  arithmetic  should 
make  an  exercise  out  of  every  combination  of  numbers  he 
can  get  outside  of  his  arithmetic.  "When  he  reads  in^ 
newspaper,  for  instance,  that  there  were  two  hundred 
and  fifty-six  persons  on  board  a  wrecked  vessel,  of  whom 
twenty-eight  were  drowned  and  eight  died  of  exposure, 
he  has  an  excellent  exercise  in  the  calculation  of  the 
various  percentages  involved.  And  so  with  a  hundred 
other  things.  Excellent  problem.s  may  be  made  out  of 
the  dimensions  of  every  room  in  the  house,  out  of  every 
planted  field,  out  of  everything  in  fact  around  the  stu- 
dent, and  these  may  be  made  to  involve  precisely  the 
principles  he  most  wishes  to  study,  whether  they  be 
those  of  arithmetic  or  those  of  the  higher  mathematics. 

They  have  the  advantage  too  of  being  real,  practical 
problems,  involving  tangible  facts,  and  there  is  no  bet- 
ter way  of  making  one's  self  a  perfect  master  of  arith- 
metic than  by  the  persistent  use  of  these  every-day  ob- 
ject-lessons with  which  we  are  all  surrounded.  Let  the 
student  practice  making  them  for  himself,  and  he  will 
find  no  lack  of  material  for  his  purpose. 

Under  another  title  in  this  volume  I  shall  endeavor 
to  show  how  a  somewhat  similar  process  may  be  made 
to  contribute  very  largely  to  the  student's  progress  in 


COMMON   SCHOOL  STUDIES.  23 

tilings  other  than  arithmetic,  and  to  enlarge  his  culture 
even  more  rapidly  than  the  regular  study  of  books  can 
do. 

We  come  now  to 

THE   STUDY   OF   ENGLISH. 

As  our  own  language  is  the  vehicle  through  which 
we  communicate  our  thoughts  to  others  and  receive 
their  ideas  in  return,  of  course  every  American  needs 
to  know  English  thoroughly.  Looking  at  the  matter 
from  the  lowest  plane  it  is  easy  enough  to  see  that  a 
mastery  of  English  has  a  decided  pecuniary  value  to  its 
possessor.  In  large  commercial  houses  the  accom- 
plished English  scholar  who  sits  at  the  correspondent's 
desk  usually  receives  double  the  salary  paid  to  the  much 
harder-worked  bookkeeper,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
latter  brings  to  the  business  the  capital  of  a  technical 
igkill.  And  there  are  scores  of  other  ways  in  which  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  one's  mother  tongue  may  be 
made  to  j)ay,  while  its  absence  is  often  fatal  to  success. 
An  ill-spelled  letter,  an  ungrammatical  remark — these 
and  similar  things  have  cost  many  a  failure. 

The  money  value  of  English  study  is  by  no  means 
small,  but  aside  from  this,  there  can  be  no  question  of 
the  fact  that  the  study  of  English,  properly  followed, 
brings  with  it  nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  much  of  intellect- 
ual culture  as  the  study  of  any  other  language,  and 
with  these  facts  in  view,  I  think  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  next  to  elementary  arithmetic  there 
is  nothing  more  important  in  a  common  school 
education  than  the  study  of  English.  And  yet  it 
seems  singularly  neglected.  Not  one  in  fifty,  even 
of    classically    educated    men,    can    write    a    single 


24  HOW  TO   EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

page  in  perfectly  accurate  English.  This  may  appeal 
to  be  an  extravagant  statement,  but  I  make  it  after  a 
careful  examination  of  results,  and  am  convinced  that 
it  by  no  means  goes  beyond  the  fact.  A  great  many 
cannot  even  write  in  tolerably  good  English,  while  the 
number  of  people  who  can  spell  correctly  is  so  small 
that  I  have  known  more  than  one  person  to  argue  that 
the  abihty  to  s]DeU  is  "  a  gift," — that  it  comes,  as  high 
musical  attainments  do,  only  to  those  who  have  especial 
intellectual  endowments  in  that  direction.  The  absurd- 
ity of  such  a  theory  is  too  manifest  to  need  demonstra- 
tion. A  memory  which  receives  and  retains  the  ten 
thousand  occurrences  of  every  day  life  is  certainly 
equal  to  the  task  of  remembering  the  order  of  letters 
in  oui'  constantly  used  words,  particularly  as  the  sound 
actively  aids  the  memory  in  this  matter,  as  it  does  not 
in  ordinary  affairs. 

THE   FAILURE    OF   THE   GKAMMABS. 

A  thorough  and  accurate  knowledge  of  Enghsh  is  of 
very  great  value  to  alL  But  while  I  think  it  im- 
possible to  attach  too  much  importance  to  the  study  of 
Enghsh,  I  do  not  regard  our  grammars,  as  they  are 
written,  as  of  much  use  in  any  case,  while  to  a  great 
many  people  they  are  simply  stumbling-blocks.  i\ii*. 
Eichard  Grant  White  has  shown,  and  most  thinking 
people  had  already  discovered,  that  oui-  whole  system 
of  conjugating  verbs  after  the  manner  of  the  Latin 
language  is  an  absurdity;  that  "I  might  have  been 
loved  "  is  no  more  a  part  of  the  verb  "  to  love  "  than  ia 
any  other  phrase  in  which  "  love  "  or  "  loved  "  occurs. 
Our  language  is  almost  whoDy  without  verbal  inflections, 
and   the   translation   of  a  Latin   verb  in  its  different 


COMMON  SCHOOL  STUDIES.  25 

moods  and  tenses  into  English  phrases  of  the  same 
meaninnj,  certainly  does  not  give  moods  and  tenses  in 
English.  Indeed,  the  grammarians  have  been  singu- 
larly inconsistent  in  this.  If  the  English  phrase  by 
which  we  express  the  thing  that  the  Komans  meant 
when  they  used  the  first  person,  singular  number,  sub- 
junctive mood,  future  pei-fect  tense  of  the  verb  "  Amo  "  ia 
properly  called,  in  English,  a  like  inflection  of  the  verb 
"  to  love,"  then  the  same  rule  should  apply  to  nouns,  ad- 
jectives, etc.,  and  we  should  have  the  word  "  man  "  de- 
chned,  in  English,  as  foUows  : 


Nominative, 

A  man. 

Genitive, 

Of  a  man. 

Dative, 

To  or  for  a  man. 

Accusative, 

A  man. 

Vocative, 

0  man. 

Ablative, 

"With,  from,  in,  or  by  a  man. 

But  we  have  nothing  of  the  sort  in  any  of  the  gram- 
mars. Our  grammarians  have  translated  the  Latin 
verbs  into  English  phrases  and  named  these  after  the 
inflections  of  which  they  have  the  force,  while  they 
wholly  omit  to  do  the  same  thing  with  the  nouns 

This  is  but  one  of  many  absurdities,  which  this  is 
not  the  place  to  point  out,  and  I  have  only  given  a 
single  illustration  for  the  sake  of  suggesting  rather  than 
explaining  to  the  reader,  my  reasons  for  saying  that 
while  I  regard  the  study  of  English  grammar  as  of  the 
utmost  importance,  I  think  the  study  of  English  gram- 
mars almost  wholly  useless  in  all  cases,  and  actually 
hurtful  in  many. 

Let  it  be  understood,  then,  that  what  the  student 
wants  is  to  study  English  grammar  whether  he  studies 


26  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

English  grammars  or  not.  I  would  have  him  learn  the 
btructure,  the  philosophy,  the  origin,  and  the  use  of  hia 
mother  tongue,  and  I  am  convinced  that  there  are 
better  ways  of  doing  this  than  the  one  ordinarily 
adopted,  in  the  chewing  of  dry  husks  at  the  bidding  of 
a  grammarian  who  defines  an  adverb  to  be  "  a  word 
which  qualifies  or  limits  a  verb,  adjective,  or  other 
adverb,"  and  then  proceeds  to  teU  the  pupil  that  the 
word  "  yes "  is  an  adverb,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  no 
sentence  can  possibly  be  formed  in  which  this  word 
will  in  any  way  qualify  or  limit  anything  whatever. 
The  ordinary  system  of  studying  English  is  slow,  u"k- 
some,  and  j)roductive  of  poor  results  in  the  great  ma- 
jority of  cases.  That  there  is  a  much  better  way  I  am 
fuUy  convinced,  and  it  is  one  of  the  purposes  of  this 
chapter  to  explain  to  the  student  what  this  better  way 
is. 

The  English  grammars  very  correctly  define  English 
grammar  to  be  "  the  art  of  speaking  and  writing  the 
English  language  correctly,"  though  they  proceed  to 
treat  of  many  things  in  no  way  embraced  in  this  defi- 
nition, while  they  omit  many  of  the  essentials  to  such 
an  art. 

HOW   TO   STUDY   GEAMMAR. 

Discarding  their  system  and  accepting  their  defini- 
tion, we  find  that  in  order  to  speak  and  write  the  Eng* 
lish  language  correctly,  it  is  necessary  to  know 

1st.  How  to  pronounce  the  words  ; 

2nd.  How  to  spell  the  words  ; 

drd.  What  the  words  mean  ; 

Mh.  How  to  frame  them  into  correct  sentences. 


COMMON   SCHOOL  STUDIES.  27 


PIIONUNCIATION. 

We  learn  the  correct  pronunciation  of  most  words  aa 
we  learn  the  words  themselves,  by  hearing  others  use 
them.  Analogy  gives  us  the  sound  of  many  others, 
and  for  the  rest,  errors  are  corrected  and  doubts  easily 
solved  by  reference  to  the  dictionaries. 

SPELLING. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  orthography  of  our  lan- 
guage is  a  difficult  one.  It  follows  few  analogies,  it  has 
many  redundancies,  it  is  often  awkward,  and  in  a  gene- 
ral way,  there  are  no  principles  governing  it.  Some 
attempts  have  been  made  to  frame  rules  for  spelling, 
but  these  for  the  most  part  are  of  small  value,  covering 
but  a  meagre  list  of  words,  and  admitting  of  many  ex- 
ceptions. There  are  but  two  of  them  that  I  have 
found  of  practical  value  to  anybody.  One  of  these  is 
that  monosyllables  and  words  accented  on  the  last  syl- 
lable, ending  in  a  single  consonant,  preceded  by  a  sin- 
gle vowel,  double  the  final  consonant  before  an  addi- 
tion beginning  with  a  vowel.  It  is  a  long  rule,  covering 
a  very  short  hst  of  words.  It  may  enable  a  student  to 
avoid  spelling  such  words  as  "  beginning,"  "  plotting," 
"  shipping,"  etc.,  with  a  single  "  n,"  "  t,"  or  "  p,"  but 
beyond  this  it  is  of  no  service  whatever.  The  other 
rule  to  which  I  refer  is  that  the  diphthong  "  ei  "  usu- 
ally follows  "  c,"  while  its  companion,  "  ie,"  is  generally 
used  after  other  consonants  ;  lor  example,  in  the  words 
"  receive,"  "  deceive,"  "  perceive,"  etc.,  the  "  e  "  takes 
precedence,  while  the  "  i "  comes  first  in  such  words  as 
"field,"  "shield,"  "believe,"  "relieve,""  chief,"  "thief," 
etc.    This  rule  serves  a  good  purpose,  inasmuch  as  it 


28  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

meets  a  veiy  common  difficulty,  but  there  are  a  good 
many  excppti(jns  to  it,  and  they  greatly  lessen  its  value. 

As  these  are  the  best  of  the  rules  given  in  any  of  the 
grammars,  and  the  best  that  can  be  given,  it  will  be 
seen  at  once  that  English  spelling  must  be  learned  to  a 
great  extent  arbitrarily,  but  a  little  industry  and  atten- 
tion will  enable  any  student  to  master  it. 

To  a  very  great  extent  we  absorb  a  knowledge  of  spell- 
ing in  our  daily  reading.  The  original  process  of  learning 
to  read  is  itself  a  learning  to  spell,  and  as  we  read  words 
correctly  spelled  in  our  newspapers  and  books,  we  natur- 
ally fall  into  the  way  of  speUing  most  of  them  aright. 
Every  person  who  reads  must  learn  to  spell  at  least 
half  the  words  in  our  commonly  used  vocabulary.  This 
far  we  are  all  able  to  spell,  but  there  is  no  reason  why 
any  student  should  habitually  spell  any  considerable 
number  of  words  badly  ;  no  reason,  at  any  rate,  except 
that  the  system  hj  which  spelling  is  commonly  taught 
is  an  essentiaUy  bad  one.  Everybody  knows  what  that 
system  is,  and  everybody  knows  too  how  imperfectly  it 
accomphshes  its  purpose.  It  is  like  all  other  parrot- 
teaching,  in  that  its  results  are  rapidly  lost  as  soon  as 
the  attention  is  given  to  something  else. 

Experience  and  observation  have  combined  to  convince 
me  that  no  person  can  be  taught  to  spell,  but  that  any 
person  may  learn  to  spell.  In  other  words,  I  am  convinc- 
ed that  no  teacher  of  spelling  is  either  necessary  or  useful 
to  persons  who  can  read  and  write.  If  the  student  would 
learn  to  spell  words,  let  him  use  words.  Let  him  write 
every  day,  and  in  writing,  whenever  he  shall  come  to  a 
word  which  he  does  not  certainly  know  how  to  speU, 
let  him  look  for  it  in  his  dictionary,  examining  its  deri- 
vation as  well  as  its  spelling.    Then  let  him  look  also  at 


COMMON   SCHOOL  STUDIES.  29 

all  the  words  derived  from  it,  and  when  this  is  done  ha 
will  never  hesitate  agam  as  to  the  orthography  of  any 
of  them. 

To  do  this  as  an  exercise  is  easy  enough  of  conrse, 
but  when  one  is  writing  for  other  purposes  he  is  apt 
to  find  it  more  convenient  to  ask  some  one  else  how 
to  spell  the  word,  or  even  to  guess  at  it,  than  to  go 
to  his  dictionary  ;  and  just  here  is  the  common  point  of 
failure.  A  spelling  so  arbitrary  as  ours  is  can  only  be 
mastered  by  industry,  and  the  student  who  has  not  in- 
dustry enough  to  examine  the  dictionary  for  himself  in 
every  case,  has  no  right  to  hope  for  anything  like  com- 
plete success.  I  cannot  too  strongly  impress  the  stu- 
dent with  the  necessity  of  holding  himself  strictly  to 
this  rule.  It  may  consume  valuable  time  at  first,  but 
the  occasions  for  going  to  the  dictionary  will  rapidly  di- 
minish in  frequency  under  a  faithful  following  of  the 
plan  suggested,  and  the  results  will  fully  compensate 
him  for  all  the  trouble  taken. 

Inattention  is  a  fruitful  source  of  ill  spelling.  I 
mean  by  this  not  merely  that  in  moments  of  inatten- 
tion we  are  apt  to  spell  incorrectly  words  that  we  know 
how  to  spell,  but  also  that  by  inattention  the  student 
loses  many  opportunities  of  learning  the  orthography 
of  words  tor  the  first  time.  I  can  best  explain  this  by 
a  few  examples  of  the  simplest  kind.  I  have  seen  the 
"word  "  preparation  "  spelled  with  an  "  e  "  in  the  second 
syllable,  simply  because  the  writer  failed  to  remember 
that  "preparation  "  is  a  derivation  of  "  prepare."  Hard- 
ly a  day  passes  in  which  I  do  not  see  "  separate  "  or 
some  of  its  derivatives  similarly  misspelled  by  people 
who  know  Latin  reasonably  well,  and  know  that  the 
Latin  word  from  which  our  "  separate  "  comes  is  a  com- 


30  UO\f  TO   EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

pound  one,  made  up  of  "  se  "  and  "  parare."  A  very 
little  measure  of  attention  would  show  them  the  abso- 
lute necessity  there  is  for  an  "  a  "  in  the  second  sylla- 
ble, and  yet  I  find  an  "  e  "  there  in  eleven  out  of  six- 
teen instances  now  before  me,  all  of  them  taken  from 
the  manuscript  of  educated  men,  Avho  could  give  the 
derivation  of  the  word  without  a  moment's  hesitation. 
These  are  but  two  cases  cited  here  by  way  of  illustra- 
tion. Scores  of  others  might  easily  be  added,  but  my 
purpose  now  is  simply  to  suggest  the  way  in  which  a 
little  care  and  attention  may  be  made  to  serve  the  stu- 
dent in  learning  to  spell  accurately. 

LEARNING    THE    MEANINGS    OF   WORDS 

In  some  sort  we  absorb  a  know'ledge  of  the  mean- 
ings of  words,  but  the  popular  use  of  words  is  by  no 
means  always  a  very  accurate  one,  and  the  nicer  dis- 
tinctions which  constitute  at  once  the  beauty  and  the 
power  of  language  are  often  wholly  lost  in  our  common 
speech.  A  good  knowledge  of  these  is  of  the  first  im- 
portance to  the  student  who  aspires  to  become  any- 
thing like  a  good  English  scholar.  For  the  accomplish- 
ment of  this,  methods  very  similar  to  those  I  have  in- 
dicated for  use  in  learning  to  spell  will  be  found  indis- 
pensable. "Whenever  the  student  hears,  sees  or  uses  a 
word  of  which  he.  does  not  know  the  full  and  precise 
meaning,  with  its  synonyms  and  their  departures  from 
absolute  synonymy,  he  should  at  once  make  the  word  a 
study,  examining  his  dictionary  carefully  for  all  the  in- 
formation there  given  on  the  subject,  and  comparing 
the  word  with  its  synonyms  for  the  sake  of  leuj-ning 
the  peculiarities  of  each,  and  the  purpose  each  serves  in 
our  speech.     The  amount  and  variety  of  information  tcj 


COMMON   SCHOOL  STUDIES.  31 

be  acquired  in  this  way  is  very  much  greater  than  most 
students  will  imagine,  and  there  is  no  better  or  more 
rapid  way  of  learning  English  than  precisely  this.  But 
to  do  this  worthily  will  require  a  good  deal  of  industry, 
and  it  may  even  cause  some  inconvenience  at  times.  In- 
dolence and  self-indulgence  are  greatly  in  the  way  in  this 
as  in  all  other  attempts  to  learn  anything  thoroughly. 

In  thus  studying  the  spelling  and  the  meaning  of 
words,  the  student  will  find  it  an  excellent  plan  to  carry 
a  memorandum-book  in  which  to  write  down,  when  a 
dictionary  is  not  at  hand,  words  of  which  he  wishes  to 
make  studies. 

In  the  study  of  meanings,  too,  a  little  attention  to 
the  forms,  kinships,  derivations,  etc.,  of  the  words  will 
be  found  of  quite  as  great  assistance  as  a  similar  pro- 
cess is  in  the  matter  of  spelling.  This  is  especially  the 
case  with  people  who  know  anything  of  Latin,  Greek, 
French  or  Anglo-Saxon,  because  to  such  persons  a 
large  number  of  our  English  words  bear  their  meaning 
on  their  faces,  if  only  the  student  takes  care  to  look  for 
it.  But  even  people  who  know  nothing  of  any  lan- 
guage except  their  own  will  find  in  many  words  traces 
of  their  origin,  from  which  all  their  nicer  shades  of 
meaning  are  at  once  apparent.  Aside  from  the  time 
saved  by  this  process  when  it  is  applicable,  it  has  the 
greater  merit  of  supplying  a  much  more  thorough  and 
accurate  knowledge  of  the  words  and  their  uses  that 
any  study  of  mere  definitions  can  give. 

It  would  seem  at  the  first  glance  that  this  habit  of 
analytical  attention  to  the  formation  of  words,  would 
BO  commend  itself  to  every  one  us  to  need  no  mention 
here,  but  I  am  convinced  that  the  fact  is  otherwise.  I 
have  known  many  good  Latin  scholars  to  habitually 


32  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

use  the  word  "  transpire"  as  tlie  equivalent  of  "  happen," 
and  certainly  no  one  familiar  with  Latin  could  possibly 
fall  into  such  an  error,  except  with  eyes  shut  to  the 
transparent  formation  of  the  word  so  misused.  And 
the  same  thing-  happens  every  day  with  hundreds  of 
other  words,  that  express  their  meaning  in  the  very 
syllables  and  letters  of  which  they  are  composed,  and 
yet  are  constantly  misused  by  people  who  ought  to 
know  better,  and  do  know  better,  if  they  would  only 
trouble  themselves  to  think  of  the  matter. 

THE    STKUCTUEE   OF   SENTENCES. 

Words,  taken  separately,  are  of  no  value.  They  are 
but  the  bricks  out  of  which  the  building,  language,  is 
constructed,  and  we  no  sooner  begin  to  learn  their 
meanings  than  we  begin  also  to  learn  how  to  put  them 
together  into  intelligible  sentences.  We  learn  this  in  a 
rude  way,  just  as  we  learn  approximate  meanings,  by 
absorption  from  the  people  around  us.  As  we  grow 
older  our  reading  greatly  increases  our  information  on 
this  subject,  at  the  same  time  correcting  many  of  the 
errors  adopted  from  oral  speech.  But  to  learn  the  ge- 
nius of  the  language,  to  master  its  idiom,  to  compre- 
hend its  principles,  and  to  acquire  so  thorough  a  mas- 
tery over  it  as  to  make  it  a  soft  clay  in  our  hands  which 
we  can  mould  as  we  will  to  our  uses,  are  ends  that  can 
be  accomplished  only  by  long  and  earnest  work. 

Let  us  look  a  little  into  the  processes.  In  the  gram- 
mars we  have  the  dry  hixsks  of  syntax,  simple  enough, 
and  even  tolerably  interesting  to  people  who  have  al- 
ready learned  all  that  these  are  intended  to  teach,  but 
quite  useless  and  almost  wholly  unintelligible  to  the 
student  seeking  to  learn  these  things.     The  grammars 


COMMON  SCHOOL  STUDIEf?.  33 

tell  of  moods  and  tenses,  with  names  that  are  anything 
but  indicative  to  the  boys  and  girls  who  are  expected  to 
use  them.  Then  follow  "  rules,"  varying  in  number  ac- 
cording to  the  fancy  of  the  grammarian — rules  like 
those  in  the  arithmetics,  that  are  simply  statements  of 
facts,  that  teach  no  principles,  and  are  of  no  manner  of 
use,  except  in  the  solution  of  the  syntactical  problems 
arrayed  under  them  as  exercises.  Doubtless  some  peo- 
ple have  learned  English  from  these  grammars,  but  in 
the  main  their  use  is  certainly  of  questionable  advan- 
tage. Dull  pupils  cannot  comprehend  them  ;  bright 
ones  get  on  bettei-,  in  the  study  of  English,  without  them. 

There  is  no  better  way  of  learning  the  structure  of 
any  complicated  thing  than  by  taking  it  to  pieces  and 
putting  it  together  again,  and  there  is  no  better  way  of 
learning  the  English  language,  certainly.  Indeed,  the 
writers  of  the  ordinary  grammars  recognize  this  fact, 
and  their  whole  effort  is  to  instruct  and  practice  the 
student  in  doing  just  this.  But  I  think  with  Mr. 
White,  and  a  good  many  other  lovers  of  idiomatic  En- 
glish, that  our  grammarians  have  been  misled  by  the 
old  scholastic  influences  into  an  attempt  to  make  our 
speech  conform  to  the  Latin,  and  so  have  built  upon  it  • 
an  unphilosophical  system  of  inflections,  and  encum- 
bered it  with  a  set  of  rules  that  have  no  root  in  the  na- 
ture of  the  language  itself.  The  limitations  of  this 
manual  would  not  admit  of  the  discussion  of  this  sub- 
ject here,  even  if  the  view  I  take  had  not  been  already 
ably  maintained  by  the  author  to  whose  work  I  have 
referred. 

But  while  I  do  not  think  any  ordinary  grammar 
necessary  or  very  useful  to  the  student  who  has 
no    master,   there   are   text-books   on  EngUsh   gram- 


84  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

mar  •wliich  will  aid  him  gi-eatly  in  his  study  of  the  lan- 
guage. Such  a  book  as  Greene's  Analysis,  for  in- 
stance, in  which  parts  of  si:)eech,  and  conjugations  and 
rules  of  syntax,  and  all  the  cumbrous  technicalities  of 
grammars  are  wholly  done  away  with,  while  the  author 
leads  the  student  step  by  step  from  the  simplest  to  the 
most  complex  of  sentences,  analyzing  them  and  show- 
ing the  student  the  natui'e  and  office  of  every  part,  will 
be  found  invaluable.  There  are  several  text-books  of 
the  sort,  in  which  the  English  language  is  treated  phi- 
losophically and  rationally,  with  but  few  technicalities  ; 
but  the  one  named  is  one  of  the  best  for  the  self-teach- 
ing student,  in  that  it  is  one  of  the  simplest. 

But  just  here  it  is  well  to  remind  the  reader  that  the 
book,  even  if  it  shall  be  thoroughly  mastered,  wiU  not 
teach  him  Enghsh.  As  he  studies  its  pages  he  should 
form  the  habit  of  going  outside  of  them  and  questioning 
the  sentences  he  reads  elsewhere  for  confirmation  and  il- 
lustration of  the  text.  He  should  make  exercises  every 
day  of  the  books  or  papers  within  his  reach,  and  of  the 
remarks  made  in  his  presence.  This  will  serve  not  only 
to  fasten  in  his  mind  the  principles  laid  down  in  the 
text,  but  also  to  show  him  the  departures  fi-om  them 
that  are  common  in  conversation,  and  he  will  soon  learn 
to  know  which  of  these  are  errors  to  be  avoided  at  all 
times,  and  which  are  simply  conversational  idioms,  ad- 
missible as  such,  but  not  authorized  for  other  piu'poses. 

HIGHEK   ENGLISH. 

From  the  Analysis,  and  from  this  daily  application  of 
its  teachings,  the  student  will  learn  the  laws  governing 
the  langTiage. 

Having  faithfuUy  followed  the  system  of  study  indi- 


COMMON  SCHOOL  STUDIES.  35 

cated,  he  ■will  now  have  learned  how  to  pronounce  the 
words ;  how  to  spell  the  words  ;  what  the  words  mean  • 
and  how  to  put  theni  together  into  sentences.  In 
other  words  he  will  know  how  to  speak  and  write  the 
English  language  correctly.  He  will  have  learned  the 
grammar  of  our  tongue. 

But  many  people  can  speak  and  write  the  language 
correctly  who  cannot  sjDeak  or  write  it  well.  Many 
people  who  never  use  an  incorrect  sentence,  never  frame 
a  graceful  one.  Correct  EngUsh  may  be,  and  often  is 
very  stiff  English,  and  the  student  who  has  gone  this 
far  is  by  no  means  master  of  the  language  as  yet.  He 
has  still  to  learn  how  to  write  and  speak  in  graceful 
sentences,  and  how  to  handle  the  tongue  deftly,  as  an 
infinitely  flexible  instrument,  completely  under  his 
control. 

Such  a  mastery  over  English  is  acquired,  of  course, 
by  very  few  people,  comparatively,  but  the  end  is  one  so 
worthy  that  the  student  should  spare  no  effort  to  ac- 
complish it  as  fully  as  possible,  and  every  approach  to 
it  is  a  step  in  the  direction  of  ripe  scholarsliip  of  the 
very  best  sort. 

The  means  that  have  been  employed  to  this  end  are 
various,  and  almost  every  student  will  be  able  to  add  to 
i^y  suggestions  many  valuable  exercises  of  his  own. 
Indeed  these  seK-de vised  lessons  are  often  the  veiy 
best  ones  possible  for  the  student,  inasmuch  as  they 
commonly  spring  from  a  known  and  felt  necessity  of 
his  own,  and  therefore  su^iply  the  wants  of  his  peculiar 
temperament  and  circumstances  much  more  directly 
than  any  exercise  suggested  by  others  can  possibly  do. 
I  shall  confine  myself  therefore  to  the  recommendation 
of  plans  which  I  have  known  to  work  well,  ui-ging  the 


36  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

student  to  vai-y  them  whenever  he  finds  that  a  change 
will  better  adapt  them  to  his  own  particular  ease. 

An  approved  text-book  on  English  composition  will 
supply  a  good  deal  of  needed  int'urmation,  while  it  will 
furnish  also  the  rules  governing  good  English  speech, 
and  guide  the  student  in  the  coi-rection  of  inelegances 
of  phrase.  (Dr.  John  S.  Hart's  very  admirable  series  of 
text-books  are  probably  the  best,  especially  for  self- 
instructed  students.)  No  text-book  on  the  subject  aims 
to  do  more  than  this,  and  indeed  none  can  do  more. 
The  rest  must  be  learned  from  extensive  reading,  or  by 
means  of  exercises,  and  these,  as  I  have  said,  may  be 
varied  almost  at  will.  The  one  most  commonly  em- 
ployed in  the  schools  is  composition-writing,  and  this, 
with  a  competent  teacher  as  critic,  is  ordinarily  found 
to  be  extremely  valuable. 

Even  without  criticism  the  practice  of  telling  things 
in  writing  will  bring  with  it  a  certain  degree  of  fluency 
and  ease  in  the  use  of  language,  and  every  student  of 
EngUsh  should  write  something  every  day.  If  the 
thing  that  he  writes  shall  prove  not  to  be  a  composition, 
in  the  school-room  sense  ol  tlie  term,  it  will  be  so  much 
the  better,  simply  because  in  real  hfe  people  talk  very 
httle  about  abstract  matters,  while  it  is  only  the  thor- 
oughly earnest  and  thoroughly  practical  teacher  who 
succeeds  in  making  his  composition- writers  treat  of  any- 
thing else. 

Let  the  student  who  would  master  English,  then, 
■write  something  every  day.  If  he  simply  tells  a  homely 
anecdote,  or  relates  the  uicideuts  of  the  day,  or  gives 
an  account  of  something  he  has  seen,  to  an  imaginary 
circle  of  readers,  or  if  he  writes  down  what  he  has 
thought  upon  any  subject,  the  result  will  probably  be 


Los  Artgeles  Cai, 
COMMON    SCHOOL  STUDIES.  37 

^orth  nothing  in  a  literary  way,  but  its  writer  will  have 
had  an  excellent  lesson  in  English. 

There  is  another  admirable  exercise,  closely  akin  to 
this.  It  was  technically  known  in  the  High  School 
where  it  originated  as  "  narration  ;"  certain  pupils  were 
named,  each  day,  as  the  narrators  for  the  following  day, 
and  each  was  required  to  take  the  rostrum  and  tell 
something  to  the  school.  They  were  allowed  to  tell 
anything  they  chose,  but  always  in  their  own  words, 
and  the  rapidity  with  which  the  pupils  improved  in 
their  manner  of  saying  what  they  had  to  say,  not  onlj* 
on  the  rostrum  but  equally  in  other  places,  was  very 
marked.  The  student  without  a  school  may  quietly 
exercise  himself  in  a  similar  way  in  the  company  of  his 
fellows  without  letting  anybody  into  his  secret.  An 
audience  is  an  audience,  whether  its  members  are  aware 
of  the  fact  or  not. 

Another  excellent  plan  is  to  take  sentences  from 
books,  or  elsewhere,  and  practice  expressing  their  ideas 
in  a  variety  of  other  forms.  It  is  best  to  take  single 
sentences  at  first,  and  to  see  in  how  many  ways  you 
can  express  the  same  ideas,  using  the  same  words  or 
others  as  convenience  may  dictate.  Then  take  two  or 
three  sentences  on  a  single  subject  and  repeat  the  pro- 
cess, practicing  also  the  expression  of  the  ideas  con- 
tained in  your  two  or  three  sentences,  in  a  single,  com- 
pound, or  complex  sentence.  Reversing  the  process, 
take  a  long  comjpound  or  complex  sentence,  and  break 
it  up  into  a  number  of  simple  ones,  fuliyi  expressing  the 
same  idea. 

This  much  may  be  done  mentally,  when  the  materials 
for  writing  are  not  at  hand,  when  the  student  is  at 
work,  or  when  he  is  walking,  or  riding,  or  doing  any- 


38  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  lOUESELF. 

tiling  else  that  does  not  requii'e  his  constant  attention, 
in  pursuance  of  the  habit  of  thought-education  sug- 
gested elsewhere  in  this  volume. 

When  you  shall  have  acquired  a  good  degree  of 
facility  in  this  exercise,  a  somewhat  more  elaborate 
application  of  the  principle  \yill  be  found  of  very  great 
advantage.  Read  a  very  short  article  of  any  kind,  and 
then  turning  avsray  from  it  write  down  its  substance  in 
your  own  way,  or  still  better,  in  three  or  four  dif- 
ferent ways,  taking  care  to  preserve  the  precise  mean- 
ing of  the  original,  and  to  omit  nothing.  At  first 
this  will  be  done  awkwardly,  but  after  a  little  practice 
you  will  find  it  easy  to  say  the  same  thing  in  half  a 
dozen  difi"ereut  ways,  and  when  you  can  do  this  the 
flexibility  of  the  language  in  your  hands  will  be 
greatly  increased.  "When  you  shall  find  this  to  be  the 
case,  follow  the  plan  with  longer  articles,  taking  care 
all  the  time  not  to  make  use  of  awkward,  confused, 
or  very  complex  sentences.  Remember  that  of  two 
ways  of  expressing  precisely  the  same  thing,  the  sim- 
pler one  is  always  the  better. 

Just  here,  let  me  give  a  word  of  caution.  If  the 
student  has  read  any  of  the  books  upon  Enghsh  com- 
position, he  is  in  danger  of  falling  into  troublesome 
errors  by  too  strict  an  adherence  to  the  rules  they  lay 
down.  Let  him  bear  in  mind,  constantly,  that  thesa 
rules  are  only  general  ones,  and  are  not  applicable  in 
every  case.  They  are  framed,  for  the  most  part,  for  the 
correction  of  those  errors  into  w  hich  very  j'ouug  writers 
commonly  fall,  and  while  they  are  necessary  for  this 
purpose,  even  their  authors  do  not  intend  that  they 
should  have  a  wider  application  than  this. 

Let  me  illustrate  this.     One  of  these  rules  is  to  the 


COMMON  SCHOOL  STXJDIES.  39 

e£fect  that  tautological  expressions  are  bad,  and  in  a  gen- 
eral way  this  is  very  true  ;  but  there  are  cases  in  which 
the  frequent  repetition  of  the  same  word  or  the  same 
idea  greatly  adds  to  the  force  of  writing,  and  a  strict  ap- 
plication of  the  rule  in  such  cases  as  these,  is  of  course 
not  intended.  Again,  there  is  a  very  simple  rule,  that 
where  several  substantives  are  coupled  toge  ther,  either 
as  the  subject  or  the  object  of  the  verb,  the  conjunction 
"  and  "  or  "  or  "  must  be  used  only  between  the  last  two. 
For  example,  "  Men,  women,  children,  horses  and  dogs, 
joined  in  the  chase,"  is  better  than  "  Men  and  women 
and  children  "  etc.,  and  ordinarily  the  rule  holds  good  in 
this  way.  There  are  ti-mes,  however,  when  it  is  better 
to  write  all  the  conjunctions,  and  our  very  best  writers 
frequently  do  so. 

To  decide  when  it  is  better  to  adhere  to  these  and 
similar  rules,  and  when  it  is  better  to  depart  from  them, 
is  the  office  of  taste,  and  good  taste  in  literary  matters 
comes  only  from  careful  culture.  I  can  give  the  stu- 
dent no  clue  to  the  problem — no  formula  by  which  he 
can  solve  it,  but  I  have  given  this  caution  in  order 
that  the  reader  who  begins  with  a  proper  respect  for 
rule  may  also  cultivate,  from  the  first,  a  reasonable  in- 
dependence of  rule,  in  order  that  the  guides  given 
him  in  his  text-books  may  not  become  his  prison- 
keepers,  as  they  are  very  apt  to  do  witlj  students  who 
have  no  other  masters.  What  I  would  press  upon  him 
is  briefly  this,  that  the  rules  given  him  in  the  text- 
books on  composition  and  rhetoric  are  in  the  main 
correct,  but  that  not  one  of  them  is  applicable  always 
and  everywhere.  In  avoiding  the  errors  they  are  de- 
signed to  correct,  beware  of  falling  into  exTors  of  an 
opposite  kind.     Let  your  taste  and  your  judgment  be 


40  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

educat'-d  by  these  rules,  but  never  allow  either  to  be 
arbitrarily  controlled  by  them.  Apply  the  rules  when 
they  are  applicable,  but  hold  yourself  free  to  depart 
fi-om  their  strict  letter  whenever  it  carries  a  meaning- 
contrary  to  their  spirit.  They  are  meant  to  be  guide- 
boardfl,  and  not  impassable  barriers  to  the  student. 
He  should  catch  their  spirit,  taking  care  to  ascertain 
just  what  they  are  intended  to  teach,  and  just  what 
errorft  they  ai-e  designed  to  prevent,  keeping  constantly 
in  mind  the  fact  that  except  in  the  matter  of  gram- 
matical accuracy,  there  can  be  no  rule  of  universal  ap- 
plication on  the  subject  of  English  composition.  I 
have  found  no  greater  stumbling-block  in  the  way  of 
self-teaching  students  than  the  habit  of  blindly  follow- 
ing rules  that  were  never  meant  to  be  so  followed. 

There  is  another  exercise  in  English  composition 
which  helps  to  give  the  student  freedom  in  the  use  of 
language,  while  its  practice  teaches  him  something  else 
at  the  same  time.  It  is  to  read  brief  editoi'ial  com- 
ments on  current  events,  and  to  write  something  quite 
different  upon  the  same  subjects  and  fi-om  the  same 
facts.  This  is  what  is  known  in  newspaper  offices  as 
paragraphing,  and  every  editor  knows  how  very  few 
people  do  it  thoroughly  well.  While  it  forms  an  excel- 
lent exercise  in  the  use  of  English,  it  serves  at  the  same 
time  to  sharpen  the  wits  and  to  cultivate  a  habit  of  in- 
dependent thinking  which  is  absolutely  essential  to  all 
profitable  reading.  The  man  who  reads  books  as  gos- 
pels, accepting  their  statements  of  fact  and  their  con- 
clusions as  necessarily  true,  becomes  the  mere  creatui'6 
of  his  books,  and  his  ideas  are  but  reflections,  and  often 
faint  ones  at  that,  of  other  people's  thoughts.  He  has 
liis  opinions  at  second-hand,  and  they  are  worth  Httle 


COMMON  SCHOOL  STUDIES.  41 

to  himself  and  still  less  to  anybody  else.  His  mind  is  a 
lamber-room.  He  has  succeeded  in  getting  some  learn- 
ing, perhaps,  but  it  has  brought  with  it  no  culture. 
Against  a  habit  with  tendencies  of  this  kind  we  cannot 
take  too  many  precautions,  and  the  exercise  just  sug- 
gested furnishes  a  most  admirable  training  in  habits  of 
reading  the  very  opposite  of  the  unfortunately  common 
one  to  which  I  refer. 

But  as  a  means  of  culture  in  English,  the  constant 
reading  of  good  authors  is  more  efl'ective  than  anything 
else,  and  upon  that,  chiefly,  the  student  must  depend 
for  excellence  in  this  as  in  a  good  many  other  depart- 
ments of  learning  and  culture. 

A  rather  remarkable  case,  illustrating  the  effective- 
ness of  reading  as  a  teacher  of  English,  was  that  of 
George  Northrup,  the  trapper.  His  education  was  ex- 
tremely limited  ;  his  opportunities  for  intercourse  with 
men  of  culture  were  very  few,  and  his  habits  of  hfe  as 
a  trapper  were  certainly  not  of  a  kind  to  supply  educa- 
tional defects.  But  he  was  a  constant  reader  of  De 
Quincey,  Irving,  and  Bancroft,  and  when  he  wrote  news- 
paper letters  from  the  Indian  wars,  the  purity  and 
grace  of  his  literary  style  were  the  wonder  of  every« 
body  who  knew  the  history  of  the  man. 


CHAPTER   m. 

COLLEGIATE  STUDIES. 

■WHAT   TO   STUDY. 

In  planning  tliis  volume  I  have  had  the  one  purpose 

of  making  it  as  generally  useful  as  possible,  constantly 
in  view.  To  this  end  I  make  my  chapters  and  other 
subdivisions  with  reference  rather  to  the  convenience  of 
students  than  to  any  strictly  philosophical  system  of 
classification.  I  have  called  the  branches  already  treat- 
ed, Common  School  Studies,  not  because  they  are  fully 
taught  in  the  average  common  school,  but  because  they 
ought  to  be.  In  like  manner  I  include  under  the  title 
"  Collegiate  Studies "  all  that  we  learn  of  languages, 
the  higher  mathematics,  and  experimental  science,  al- 
though the  rudiments  of  aU  these  are  commonly 
learned  before  matriculation.  This  manual  is  intended 
chiefly  for  students  who  have  not  the  advantages  of  re- 
gular instruction,  and  very  many  of  these  are  forced  by 
cu'cumstances  to  content  themselves  with  the  bai'e  ne- 
cessaries of  education.  For  such  the  course  ah-eadj 
marked  out  is  especially  designed.  It  embraces  noth- 
ing that  the  commonest  education  should  not  include, 
while  it  excludes  everything  else.  Having  gone  thus 
far  in  the  work  of  self-culture,  the  student  wiU  now  h« 


COLLEGIATE  STiJDIES.  43 

called  upon  to  decide  how  much  more  of  regular  study 
he  will  undertake,  and  the  old  questions,  "  what  shall  I 
study  ?"  and  "  how  shall  I  study  it  ?"  will  come  up  again 
for  decision. 

In  this  case,  as  in  the  former  one,  the  decision  of  the 
question,  "  What  shall  I  study  ?"  will  depend  lai-gely 
upon  the  student's  age,  circumstances  and  purposes. 
Again  he  is  reminded  that  in  all  knowledge  there  is 
profit,  but  that  all  knowledge  is  not  equally  profitable. 
Again  he  must  remember  that  there  is  no  limit  to  pro- 
fitable education  ;  that  the  ideal  education  is  a  com- 
plete storing  of  the  mind  with  information,  and  a  com- 
plete development  of  all  the  faculties  ;  that  the  true 
purpose  of  education  is  the  preparation  of  the  man  for 
his  most  perfect  work. 

Study  is  the  means  by  which  education  is  secured, 
and  study  has  a  twofold  purpose.  Whether  we  study 
books,  men  or  things,  we  are  constantly  accomplishing 
a  double  end  and  receiving  a  double  benefit ;  we  are 
acquiring  information  and  we  are  developing  and  dis- 
ciphning  our  faculties.  In  deciding  between  two 
courses  of  study,  which  to  select,  the  student  must 
take  into  the  account  the  value  of  the  information 
each  will  give  and  the  value  of  the  cultm-e  each  wiU 
bring.  And  these  values,  as  I  have  before  said, 
vary  according  to  the  circumstances  and  purposes  of 
the  student.  Some  kinds  of  information  and  some 
kinds  of  culture  have  a  special  value  in  certain  busi- 
nesses, which  other  culture  and  other  information, 
equally  good  in  themselves,  have  not.  In  other  words, 
the  man  should  be  moulded  to  his  work  in  life  as  per- 
fectly as  j)ossible.  The  more  complete  his  education 
can  be  made  the  better,  but  if  it  must  be  a  partial  one, 


44  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

then  it  should  embrace  the  pints  that  best  supply  his 
wants.  I  can  only  indicate  the  nature  of  each  branch 
of  study,  leaving  the  student  to  decide  which  will  best 
serve  his  purpose,  reminding  him,  liowever,  that  he 
needs  them  all,  and  advising  him  to  make  thfe  list  of  his 
selections  as  large  as  his  circumstances  will  allow. 

THE   SCIENTISTS   AXD    THE    CLASSICISTS. 

The  student  who  has  pushed  his  education  to  this 
point,  cannot  have  failed  to  discover  that  there  are  two 
opposing  schools  of  educational  theorists,  differing 
widely  in  opinion  as  to  the  comparative  merits  of  the  two 
curi-iculi — the  classical  and  the  scientific  as  they  are 
called.  The  more  conservative  school  holds  that  the 
study  of  languages  brings  with  it  an  intellectual  culture 
which  nothing  else  can  supply.  Their  opponents  argue 
that  there  is  nothing,  or  at  any  rate  very  little  of 
practical  use,  learned  from  Latin  and  Greek,  and  that 
scientific  studies  furnish  as  much  mental  discipline  as 
the  classics  do,  while  their  teachings  are  eminently 
piactical,  after  the  modern  acceptation  of  the  term. 
The  classicists  accuse  the  scientists  of  measuring  the 
value  of  culture  by  a  sordid  utditarian  standard,  and 
the  scientists  retort  by  crying  "  cant,"  and  insisting  that 
the  old  system  of  "  Latin  and  Logic "  is  a  musty  rehc 
of  a  less  practical  age  than  this. 

Between  these  two  it  is  neither  the  province  nor  the 
purpose  of  this  volume  to  decide.  Probably  both  are 
partly  right  and  both  partly  wrong.  The  utihtarian 
character  of  a  scientific  education  is  certainly  a  point 
in  its  favor,  but  there  seems  to  be  quite  as  much  oi 
cant  employed  in  its  advocacy  as  in  that  of  the  older 
system.     On   the  other  hand,  I  am  not  of  those  who 


COLLEGIATE  STUDIES.  45 

think  liglitly  of  the  classics.  The  culture  obtained  in 
study  of  the  languages,  whether  dead  or  alive,  is  of  a 
kind  which  nothing  else  can  claim  to  give,  while  the 
practical  use  of  such  study,  even  if  we  confine  it  to  the 
dead  tongues,  and  measure  its  value  by  the  strictest 
of  utilitarian  rules,  is  by  no  means  small. 

Aside  from  other  considerations,  there  is  no  bet- 
ter or  surer  way  of  learning  English  thoroughly  than 
by  learning  other  languages.  The  kinship  of  all  the 
Indo-European  tongues  is  so  close  that  we  cannot 
add  an  acquaintance  with  any  one  of  them  without 
greatly  increasing  and  improving  our  knowledge  of 
those  we  may  have  learned  ah'ead}'  ;  and  in  addition 
to  this  there  can  be  no  question  of  the  fact  that  the 
act  of  translating  from  any  one  tongue  into  any 
other,  is  the  very  best  possible  exercise  for  develop- 
ing that  fluency,  and  freedom,  and  flexibility  in  the  use 
of  our  own  language  which  we  all  admit  are  of  so 
much  value. 

In  the  exercises  given  in  a  former  chapter,  for  the 
student's  use,  I  have  purposely  omitted  this  one  of 
translation,  because  it  seemed  out  of  place  there,  inas- 
much as  a  large  majority  of  those  for  whose  benefit 
that  chapter  was  written  know  no  language  but  their 
own,  and  many  of  them,  perhaps,  will  study  no  other. 
Some  of  those  exercises,  however,  are  one  in  principle 
with  translation,  and  the  processes  are,  in  fact,  transla- 
tions from  one  kind  of  English  into  another.  These 
have  been  made  so  for  the  purj)ose  of  supplying  to  the 
student  of  English,  as  far  as  possible,  the  advantages 
which  only  the  student  of  other  languages  can  fully  en- 
joy, and  the  man  who  would  master  English,  if  he  can- 
not study  other  languages  thoi'oughly,  cannot  do  a  bet- 


46  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

ter  tiling  tlian  to  learn  something  of  other  tongues, 
even  if  it  be  but  the  "little  Latin  and  less  Greek"  at- 
tributed to  Shakespeare.  The  very  fact  that  to  learn 
anything  of  these  he  must  translate  their  idiom  into 
our  own,  is  quite  enough  to  justify  the  recommenda- 
tion. 

I  need  not  dwell  upon  the  advantages  of  scientific 
studies.  The  student  wiU  hear  these  extolled  on  all 
hands,  and  with  excellent  reason.  The  sciences  deal 
with  the  practical  concerns  of  to-day.  Their  teachings 
are  all  of  the  largest  usefulness.  Their  study  equips 
the  student,  as  nothing  else  can,  for  an  active,  useful, 
earnest,  and  profitable  life,  and  anything  like  a  mastery 
even  of  any  one  scientific  specialty  brings  with  it  a  good 
degTee  of  cultui'e,  though  the  culture  is  of  a  somewhat 
narrow  sort  in  most  instances.  Indeed,  the  chief 
danger  incident  to  scientific  piu'suits  lies  in  the  growing 
tendency  of  scientists  to  follow  specialties,  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  everything  else.  Humboldt  took  "  all  know- 
ledge for  his  province,"  but  in  our  day  no  man  can  hope 
to  be  great  in  the  whole  even  of  any  one  science.  Your 
botanist,  w^ho  wishes  to  be  something  more  than  an 
amateur,  confines  himself  chiefly  to  some  one  class  of 
flora.  One  astronomer  studies  asteroids,  and  another 
makes  comets  his  specialty,  until  even  the  fixed  stars 
become,  in  his  view,  affairs  of  minor  importance  ; 
while  the  entomologist  thinks  meanly  of  any  glass  that 
has  a  greater  range  than  that  of  his  microscope. 

There  is  so  much  in  science — so  much  in  each  separate 
science — that  no  one  man  can  grasp  it  all  with  a  master 
hand,  and  as  a  consequence  the  tendency  is  more  and 
more  strongly  toward  specialties.  All  this,  of  course,  is 
for  the  good  of  science,  but  it  must  greatly  nan'ow  the 


COLLEGIATE   STUDIES.  47 

men.  It  is  a  departure,  of  the  most  marked  character, 
from  the  ideal  education — the  education  which  enlarges 
and  develops  all  the  faculties  into  their  fullest  and 
most  healthful  activity,  giving  each  its  full  share  of 
culture,  and  subordinating  each  to  the  perfectly  bal- 
anced whole.  It  is  well  for  the  world  that  we  have 
specialists,  but  the  pushing  of  one's  whole  being  into  a 
specialty,  while  it  may  ensure  good  results  in  that  one 
direction,  is  not,  by  any  means,  the  highest  or  best  form 
of  education. 

The  advantages  of  mathematical  study  are  manifest. 
Aside  from  the  practical  daily  uses  of  mathematics  in 
every  workshop  and  every  ofid.ce,  the  study  of  pure  or 
applied  mathematics  supplies  a  kind  of  intellectual 
training  which  can  be  secured  in  no  other  way.  The 
accuracy  of  conception  and  statement  required,  the 
mastery  of  principles,  the  solution  of  problems — all 
these  develop  habits  of  mind  of  the  most  healthful 
and  useful  kind.  There  is  hardly  any  business  in  which 
the  processes  of  mathematics  are  not  in  constant  use, 
and  there  can  be  no  position  in  life  in  which  the  mental 
discipline  that  comes  of  mathematical  study  is  value- 
less. 

THK   QUESTION   TO   BE   DECIDED. 

The  student  who  has  completed  his  common  school 
studies  will  in  almost  every  case  feel  called  upon  to  de- 
cide what  he  will  select  from  the  seemingly  endless  list 
presented  by  the  advocates  of  the  classical  and  the  scien- 
tific courses.  On  the  one  hand  there  are  a  score  of 
separate  sciences,  almost  any  one  of  which  is  too  vast 
for  his  complete  mastery,  and  on  the  other   a  hst  of 


48  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

languages  still  larger.    From  which  shall  he  select,  and 
how  much  of  either  may  he  safely  undertake  ? 

Again,  he  must  decide  for  himself,  having  in  mind 
his  own  special  circumstances,  the  time  at  his  command, 
his  wants  in  the  way  of  information,  and  his  wants  in 
the  way  of  culture.  A  careful  reading  of  this  chapter 
■will  inform  him  as  to  the  nature  of  the  several  branches, 
and  their  respective  degrees  of  special  adaptation  to  his 
purj^oses,  but  he  should  never  for  a  moment  lose  sight 
of  the  fact  that  the  more  general  and  catholic  his  edu- 
cation can  be  made,  the  nearer  it  "wHl  approach  to  the 
perfect  standard  of  complete  and  well  balanced  cul- 
tui'e.  If  his  time  is  hmited,  and  his  business  or  other 
circumstances  create  a  special  want,  let  him  supply  that 
fii-st,  by  all  means.  Otherwise  let  him  beware  of  the 
narrowness  of  specialties.  Except  in  such  individual 
cases  as  the  one  named,  the  best  course  is  one  embrac- 
ing something  of  the  languages,  something  of  the  ex- 
perimental sciences,  and  something  of  mathematics — 
and  the  more  of  each  the  better.* 


*  I  speak  here  only  of  text-book  study.    The  subject  of  general  literatuK 
trUl  be  treated  under  another  liea4. 


CHAPTER    TV. 

THE    STUDY    OF   LJJfGUAGES. 

Hayeng  determined  to  study  one  or  more  foreign 
tongues,  tlie  student  will  almost  certainly  find  himself 
puzzled  to  decide  what  ones  they  shall  be.  I  cannot 
tell  him,  nor  can  any  one  else  lay  down  a  general  rule 
in  such  cases.  Perhaps  I  can  help  the  reader,  however, 
to  solve  the  difficulty  for  himself. 

THE   COMPAKAITVE   VALUES   OF   LANGUAGES. 

The  Greek  and  Latin  commonly  take  precedence  of 
modern  languages,  in  systematic  curriculi,  for  the  rea- 
son that  they  are  much  more  difficult  in  some  regards, 
and  are  therefore  supposed  to  furnish  a  larger  share  of 
mental  discipline  than  any  two  spoken  European  lan- 
guages. Again,  our  literature,  and  that  of  all  Europe, 
is  so  closely  allied  to  the  classics  of  Greece  and  Rome 
as  to  give  special  value  to  the  study  of  those  tongues. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  knowledge  of  almost  any  modern 
speech  is  of  much  greater  practical  usefulness  than  a 
knowledge  of  Greek  or  Latin,  and  the  current  of  opin- 
ion seems  to  be  setting  strongly  in  favor  of  modern 
languages,  in  this  utilitarian  age. 

Of  the  modern  languages,  French  is  the  most  gener- 
ally useful,  perhaps,  to  people  who  may  have  occasion  to 


50  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELr. 

travel,  inasmuch  as  it  is  not  only  the  language  of  diplo- 
macy, but  also  the  one  speech  in  which  the  ti'aveller 
can  make  himself  understood  almost  anywhere  in  Eu- 
rope. The  French  literature,  too,  is  one  of  the  finest  in 
the  world. 

The  German,  while  it  is  spoken  less  commonly  out  of 
Germany,  is  the  native  tongue  of  a  very  large  part  of 
Em'opc.  It  is  so  closely  akin  to  the  Saxon  part  of  our 
own  language  as  to  have  a  peculiar  value  to  English- 
speaking  people.  And,  moreover,  there  are  so  many 
Germans  in  our  own  country  that  a  knowledge  of  their 
language  has  a  practical  value  to  Americans  which  no 
other  has. 

These  are  the  two  modern  languages  most  commonly 
studied  by  Americans,  for  the  reason  that  while  their 
respective  Hteratures  are  of  the  verj^  highest  order,  they 
have  a  greater  practical  value  to  us  than  other  Eui'o- 
pean  tongues.  In  j)oint  of  kinship  with  English  the 
Germanic  family  of  languages  (German,  Dutch,  Scan- 
dinavian, etc.)  are  nearer  on  one  side,  and  the  Latin 
group  (French,  Italian,  Spanish,  Portuguese,  etc.)  on 
the  other.  Most  of  our  shorter,  commoner  conversation- 
al words  come  to  us  fi'om  the  Germanic  side,  while  from 
the  Latin  we  have  the  words  of  nice  distinction  and 
more  ornate  speech.  From  the  one  we  get  the  strength 
and  from  the  other  the  polish  of  our  tongue.  The  re- 
quirements of  the  student  in  one  or  the  other  of  these 
regards  may  influence  his  choice  to  some  extent,  where 
other  considerations  are  equal. 

THE   COMPAKATIVE   Dn"FICULTY   OF   LKiENING    THEM. 

Another  point  is  the  comparative  ease  or  difficulty 
with  which  different  languages  may  be  learned.     To  a 


THE  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES.  51 

student  who  knows  nothing  but  Enghsh,  the  difference 
in  this  respect,  between  the  leading  languages  of  the 
two  families,  is  hardly  appreciable.  The  Dutch  closely 
resembles  English  in  some  respects,  and  the  Frisic  dia- 
lect is  so  like  our  own  language  that  travellers  have 
sometimes  mistaken  it  for  corrupt  English.  This  is  not 
the  case  however  with  the  German.  We  have  a  good 
many  words  in  common  with  that  language,  but  the 
resemblance  is  not  much  stronger  than  that  between 
English  and  the  Latin  tongues,  so  that  the  studeut  who 
knows  no  language  but  English  will  find  one  about  as 
difficult  as  the  other.  With  one  who  knows  Latin, 
however,  even  partially,  the  case  is  very  different.  To 
such  a  person  the  French  and  the  Italian  are  much 
easier  than  the  German,  while  the  Spanish  and  Portu- 
guese are  easier  even  than  these.  Indeed,  the  Spanish 
is  so  similar  to  the  Latin  that  no  Latin  scholar  need 
trouble  himself  very  much  to  learn  to  read  it. 

If  the  student  knows  Latin,  then,  or  any  one  of  the 
Latin  tongues,  he  will  find  far  less- difficulty  in  learning 
any  other  language  of  that  family  than  in  mastering  a 
Germanic  speech.  If  he  knows  any  two  of  these  lan- 
guages, his  study  of  the  others  will  be  still  easier. 

I  suggest  all  these  things  merely  that  the  student 
may  have  before  him  all  the  facts  bearing  upon  the 
question  of  what  languages  he  will  undertake,  and  may 
make  his  decision  wisely. 

HOW   TO   STUDY   LANGUAGES. 

Languages  are  studied  in  a  great  variety  of  ways, 
many  of  them  convenient  and  many  exceedingly  awk- 
ward. The  old  system,  still  in  use  m  too  many  schools, 
is  to  begin  with  a  grammar,  study  it  from  beginning  to 


52  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOUBSELF. 

end,  and  then,  with  the  aid  of  a  lexicon,  to  translate 
one  book  aftex*  another  from  the  language  in  hand  into 
English.  The  Germans,  who  have  done  more  than  any 
other  people  to  develop  rational  s^'^stems  of  teaching, 
were  the  originators  of  the  first  improvements  on  this 
old,  slow  and  unsatisfactory  mode  of  studying  lan- 
guages, and  to  them  we  really  owe  all  that  we  have  of 
improved  methods  in  the  matter.  Their  first  marked 
advance  was  the  introduction  of  what  is  usually  called 
prose  composition — which  consists  of  a  series  of  grad- 
uated exercises  in  translation — from  the  foreign  into 
the  mother  tongue,  and  conversely  fi-om  the  native  into 
the  foreign  language.  The  advantages  of  this  plan  of 
graduated  double  translations  over  the  old  system  are 
so  manifest  that  the  principle  involved  has  found  a 
place  in  almost  every  one  of  the  later  methods,  most  cf 
which  have  gi'own  out  of  it  more  or  less  directly. 

THE    GKOUP   SYSTEM. 

Dr.  Beard,  in  his  work  on  self-culture,  predicts  that 
the  discoveries  made  by  the  comparative  philologists 
will  revolutionize  our  system  of  learning  languages. 
He  thinks  the  best  way  to  become  famihar  with  differ- 
ent tongues  is  to  study  them  collectively,  and  suggests 
that  the  student  first  take  up  Sanscrit,  as  the  head  of 
the  Indo-European  family,  and  learn  at  least  those  of 
its  roots  which  have  been  preserved  iu  the  tongues  that 
have  come  after  it,  and  then  proceed  to  learn  the  com- 
parative grammar  of  the  several  languages  composing 
one  of  the  groups  of  which  the  great  Indo-Europeau 
family  is  composed. 

However  admirable  this  plan  may  be  for  men  who  in- 
tend to  make  comparative  philologists  of  themselves,  it 


THE   STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES.  63 

will  hardly  become,  as  Dr  Beard  thinks,  the  common 
tnode  of  studying  languages,  and  it  certainly  has  little 
practical  value  to  the  class  of  students  for  whom  I 
write.  I  refer  to  it  here  only  because  it  contains  the 
germ  of  a  suggestion  which  may  be  of  advantage  to  the 
student,  and  that  is  that  if  he  intends  to  study  more 
than  one  language,  he  will  get  on  faster  by  studying 
them  in  groups,  not  necessarily  beginning  with  Latin 
when  he  means  to  study  that  and  the  tongues  which 
have  come  from  it,  but  studying  all  the  Latin  lan- 
guages he  intends  to  master,  one  after  the  other,  defer- 
ring those  of  any  other  group  until  after  he  shall  have 
completed  his  studies  in  those  of  the  group  first  under- 
taken. In  this  way  one  language  will  become  a  key  to 
another,  and  the  student's  progress  will  be  greatly  faci- 
htated. 

Ordinarily,  however,  the  number  of  tongues  studied 
is  not  sufficient  to  make  this  of  any  practical  use,  and 
it  will  better  serve  the  purposes  of  this  volume  to  tell 
the  student  just  how  to  learn  any  one  language.  Sev- 
eral improved  plans  for  doing  this  have  been  devised  of 
late  years,  all  of  them  based  upon  the  German  system 
already  referred  to,  though  in  them  all  that  system  is 
greatly  elaborated  and  improved. 

M.  marcel's  system. 

The  best  of  these,  in  my  judgment,  is  that  given  in  a 
little  book  now  out  of  print,*  of  which  I  shah  endeavor 
to  give  the  spirit  here.  In  the  book  itself  the  reasons 
for  every  process  and  every  exercise  are  given  in  full,  a 
thing  manifestly  impossible  here,  even  if  it  were  desira- 

•  The  Study  of  Languages  brought  back  to  its  Ti'ue  Priuciples ;  or  the  Art  of 
Thinking  iu  a  Toreigu  Language,  by  0.  Marcel,  Knt.  Leg.  Hon.,  etc.,  etc. 


54  HOW  TO  EDUCATE   YOURSELF. 

ble.  The  student  needs  only  to  know  what  the  system 
is,  and  that  it  has  proved  one  of  the  vei'y  best  in  actual 
practice.  With  this  general  acknowledgment  let  me 
give  the  system  of  M.  Mai  eel,  with  one  or  two  unim- 
portant modifications,  as  briefly  as  possible. 

In  learning  a  language  there  are  four  distinct  things 
to  be  learned.     These  are — 

1.  To  read  the  written  tongue  ; 

2.  To  understand  the  spoken  tongue  ; 

3.  To  speak  the  language  ; 

4.  To  write  the  language. 

And  these  should  be  learned  in  the  order  in  which 
they  are  here  set  down,  so  that  one  may  serve  as  a  key 
to  another.  Not  that  one  of  these  should  be,  or  can  be 
wholly  mastered  before  the  next  is  begun,  but  this  is 
the  order  in  which  they  should  be  taken  up.  In 
learning  a  dead  language,  the  first  and  last  of  these 
are  all  that  it  is  necessaiy  to  know,  because  the  pronun- 
ciation of  the  dead  languages  is  uncertain  at  best,  and 
as  nobody  speaks  them  we  have  no  occasion  to  learn  a 
,  questionable  pronunciation,  which  when  learned  is  of 
no  use  whatever*. 

Beyond  the  quantitive  rules  of  pronunciation  there- 
fore there  is  little  to  be  learned  in  this  respect  in  the 
study  of  dead  languages,  and  the  same  thing  is  true 
also  of  modern  languages,  when  the  student  studies 
them  solely  with  a  view  to  the  reading  of  their  litera- 
ture, and  has  no  purpose  to  speak  or  to  understand 
them  when  spoken. 

HUW  TO  LEAEN  TO  EEAD  A  LAXGUAG£. 

The  ordinary  way  of  learning  to  read  a  language  is 
by  the  constant  use  of  the  grammar  and  the  dictionary. 


THE   STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES.  55 

In  the  metliod  bow  under  consideration  both  of  these 
are  dispensed  with  almost  wholly.  We  not  only  do  not 
find  it  necessary  to  learn  the  rules  of  Enghsh  syntax 
before  learning  to  read  English,  but  practically  we  learn 
those,  rules  chiefly  from  our  reading,  precisely  as  the 
grammarians  who  have  written  them  down  for  ua 
learned  them  in  the  first  instance.  A  language  is  not 
made  from  its  syntax,  but  the  syntax  is  deduced  from 
the  language — it  is  merely  a  statement  of  the  facts  of 
usage,  and  is  in  no  way  the  author  of  that  usage.  Ac- 
cordingly, to  learn  the  rules  of  syntax  which  come 
from  the  language,  before  learning  the  language,  is 
wholly  unnatural  and  irrational.  The  child  learns  how 
to  put  words  together  before  he  learns  anything  of  the 
syntactical  rules  involved.  He  learns  to  use  his  mother 
tongue  from  the  example  of  others,  and  not  from  any 
rules  of  syntax,  and  it  is  precisely  in  this  way  that  the 
student  should  proceed  in  learning  any  other  language. 
He  should  learn  first  the  usage  of  the  people  who 
write  and  speak  it,  and  from  this  he  will  learn  the 
rules  practically  without  the  aid  of  any  grammar. 

And  the  same  is  true  of  verbal  meanings.  Diction- 
aries only  give  the  translation  of  words — their  equiva- 
lents in  English — not  their  meaning  in  all  its  fullness, 
which  can  only  be  learned  from  their  use  by  the  peo- 
ple to  whom  they  are  natives. 

The  student  cannot  learn  the  grammar  of  a  lan- 
guage or  the  meaning  of  its  words  at  all  adequately 
except  from  the  language  itself,  and  to  attempt  to 
learn  these  as  a  step  preparatory  to  the  study  of  the 
language  is  simply  an  attempt  to  subvert  the  order  of 
uature  and  to  accomphsh  an  impossibility. 

There    are   certain   things,    however,   that  may    be 


56  HOW  TO   EDUCATE   YOURSELF. 

learned  from  the  grammars  and  dictionaries  as  a  pre- 
paration for  reading,  and  the  learning  of  these  consti- 
tutes the  first  step  in  the  study  of  the  language.  Let 
me  explain  what  these  are,  and  briefly  state  the  reasons 
for  learning  them  and  only  them.  There  are  two 
classes  of  words  of  which  every  language  is  almost  wholly 
composed.  The  first  of  these  consists  of  verbs,  adjec- 
tives and  substantives,  out  of  which,  chiefly,  all  sen- 
tences are  formed.  The  other  class  consists  of  articles, 
pronouns,  prepositions,  conjunctions  and  adverbs, 
which  are  used  to  connect  the  others  or  to  modify  their 
meaning. 

The  import  of  woi'ds  of  the  first  class  varies  largely 
in  practice,  so  that  it  can  only  be  adequately  learned 
from  their  use,  while  words  of  the  other  class  have  or- 
dinarily but  a  single  signification,  which  may  be  readily 
learned  ;  and  moreover,  as  a  rule  they  have  few  if  any 
variations  of  form  in  composition. 

These  words  of  the  second  class  should  be  so  far 
learned  in  advance  that  the  student  will  know  them  by 
sight  when  he  shall  meet  them  in  reading.  There  are 
less  than  four  hundred  of  them  in  common  use  in  each 
European  language,  and  their  limited  number,  together 
with  their  usually  uninflected  character,  makes  it  easy 
to  learn  their  forms  and  meanings  so  that  when  they 
are  met  they  will  give  no  trouble. 

With  words  of  the  first  class,  however,  no  attempt 
should  be  made  to  do  anything  of  the  kind,  but  the 
conjugations  and  declensions  should  be  mastered,  so 
that  the  various  forms  of  inflected  words  may  be  readi- 
ly recognized.  This  much  may  be  learned  from  any 
grammar,  and  this  constitutes  the  whole  of  the  first 
step  in  learning  to  read  a  language. 


THE   STDDY  OF  LANGUAGES.  5? 

The  puj)il  should  next  begin  to  translate  the  ioreign 
tongue  into  his  own  language,  without  the  use  of  dic- 
tionary or  grammar.  When  he  knows  the  inflections 
of  the  verbs,  etc.,  and  can  recognize  most  of  the  words 
of  the  second  class,  he  will  have  no  diificulty  iu  trans- 
lating any  plain  text  into  English,  with  the  help  of  a 
strict  translation,  and  for  this  purpose  it  is  best  at  first 
to  use  text-books  in  which  the  English  and  the  foreign 
text  are  printed  in  parallel  columns,  or  on  directly  op- 
posite pages. 

Books  of  this  kind  may  be  had  for  nearly  all  the  mo- 
dern languages  usually  studied  in  this  country  ;  but 
when  they  cannot  be  secured,  the  next  best  thing  is  a 
translation  in  a  separate  volume.  Interlinear  transla- 
tions are  very  perplexing,  and  are  bad  for  several  other 
reasons. 

The  books  used  should  be  as  interesting  as  possible 
in  their  matter,  and  stories  or  other  works  in  narrative 
style  are  much  the  best.  Poetry  should  be  avoided  en- 
tirely at  this  stage  of  the  learner's  progress,  because  it 
is  difficult,  and  because  its  syntactical  structure  is  not 
in  accordance  with  the  common  usage  of  the  tongue. 

The  student  now  proceeds  to  translate  the  foreign 
language  into  English,  referring  to  his  printed  transla- 
tion for  assistance,  for  confirmation  in  cases  of  doubt, 
and  for  the  correction  of  errors.  In  the  text  he  haa 
the  language  in  actual  use,  written  by  an  author  to 
whom  it  is  a  mother  tongue,  and  consequently,  showing 
all  the  usages  and  idioms  of  the  language  much  more 
fully  and  much  more  practically  than  can  be  done  in 
any  ordinary  text-book. 

What  he  wants  is  to  learn  French,  or  Gex*man,  or 
Si^anish  just   as   Frenchmen,   Germans  or  Spaniards 


58  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

really  use  it,  and  this  is  best  learned  from  a  study  of  it 
as  they  habitually  employ  it.  He  wants  no  grammatical 
disquisition  on  the  subject,  and  no  dictionary  transla- 
tions of  words. 

He  needs  to  read  as  much  as  possible  of  the  Ian 
guage  he  is  studying,  and  by  thus  reading  it  he  finds 
out  practically  what  are  the  usages  of  the  language 
and  what  the  real  force  and  meaning  of  each  word  is, 
and  this  is  just  what  the  grammars  and  the  dictionaries 
theoretically  teach,  but  what  they  can  never  teach 
thoroughly  and  practically. 

But  just  here  it  is  necessary  to  remind  the  student 
that  translating  a  book  from  a  foreign  language  into 
English  is  not  reading  the  foreign  language  by  any 
means.  There  is  much  that  is  untranslatable  in  every 
language.  The  full  force  of  an  author's  meaning  can 
never  be  felt  except  by  those  who  read  his  work  in  the 
original — that  is  to  say  by  those  who  have  so  far  mas- 
tered the  language  in  which  he  writes,  that  his  worda 
and  sentences  directly  convey  his  meaning,  without 
their  mental  translation  into  English. 

We  never  know  a  language,  we  can  never  really  read 
a  language,  until  we  can  think  in  it,  without  mentally 
substituting  the  native  for  the  foreign  idiom,  or  vice 
versa. 

I  mention  this  here,  because  it  should  be  the  con- 
stant aim  of  the  student,  as  he  translates,  to  acquire 
the  power  of  understanding  the  text  without  translat- 
ing it.  This  power  comes  only  with  effort,  and  the  ef- 
fort should  be  a  constant  one,  beginning  almost  as  soon 
as  the  student  begins  to  translate. 

His  first  success  in  this  direction  will  be  in  the  way 
of  isolated,  idiomatic  expressions,  which  cannot  be  ex- 


THE    STTDY  OF  LANGUAGES.  59 

ac  fly  translated.  Of  these  he  will  soon  catch  the  spirit 
and  meaning,  at  first  partially  and  imperfectly,  after 
awhile  in  all  their  fullness.  Let  him  seize  every  such 
opportunity,  and  when  once  an  expression  carries  its 
meaning  to  his  mind  directly,  let  him  always  after 
avoid  the  translation  of  that  or  similar  expressions. 

His  stock  of  such  will  grow  much  more  rapidly  than 
he  thinks,  and  each  new  acquisition  will  aid  him  in  se- 
curing others. 

Here  is  another  advantage  which  this  system  has 
over  the  old  one.  Grammars  and  dictionaries  teach 
men  to  translate  only  ;  by  this  system  we  learn  to  read 
in  the  original. 

No  grammar  can  tell  the  student  what  an  idiomatic 
expression  means.  It  can  only  tell  him  what  is  the 
English  idiom  most  nearly  corresponding  with  it. 

Children  learn  their  own  language  by  precisely  thia 
method.  No  parent  lectures  his  child  upon  the  rela- 
tions of  substantive  and  verb,  before  teaching  him  how 
to  put  them  together  in  a  sentence.  We  learn  our 
mother  tongue  in  sentences,  and  not  in  words.  Even 
before  the  child  can  pronounce  at  all,  he  learns  to  un- 
derstand what  his  mother  means  when  she  says  things 
to  him. 

His  knowledge  of  whole  sentences  precedes  his 
knowledge  of  words.  He  can  talk  and  read  for  many 
years  before  he  knows  anything  of  syntax,  and  if  he 
heard  nothing  but  pure,  correct  English  from  the  first 
he  would  use  nothing  else. 

Now  it  is  precisely  this  system  which  we  should  fol- 
low in  learning  any  foreign  language.  We  should  learn 
not  the  definitions  of  isolated  words,  and  the  rules  of 
syntax  regarding  them,  but  the  meaning  of  the  sentea- 


(50  HOW  TO   EDUCATE  YOURSEIiP. 

ces  as  tliey  are  fi-amed  by  the  people  whose  language 
^ve  are  studying,  and  thus  learn  the  language  itself. 
After  we  shall  have  done  this  thoroughly,  it  will  be 
time  enough  to  take  up  the  grammar,  if  we  shall  then 
care  to  do  it. 

Let  the  student  begin  then  by  translating  some  in- 
teresting work,  substituting  actual  reading  for  transla- 
tion wherever  it  is  possible,  and  becoming  familiar  with 
the  usages  of  the  language  as  rapidly  as  he  can.  He 
will  find  a  second  reading  of  all  the  passages  of  very 
great  advantage  in  this  direction,  or  still  better,  if  he 
can  get  for  his  first  reading-book,  something  with 
which  he  is  already  familar  in  English — the  New  Testa- 
ment, for  instance — he  will  much  more  rapidly  gain  a 
clear  insight  into  the  untranslatable  force  of  the  idiom, 
and  acquire  much  sooner  than  he  otherwise  would,  the 
power  to  think  in  the  language  he  is  learning. 

At  this  stage  of  the  learner's  progress,  if  the  lan- 
guage he  is  studying  be  a  hving  one,  he  should  make 
no  attempt  to  pronounce  it.  The  power  of  under- 
standing the  spoken  tongue,  as  will  be  seen  later,  must 
come  before  that  of  pronouncing  it,  and  any  attempts 
at  pronunciation  made  before  this  power  of  under- 
standing is  acquired,  will  only  cultivate  and  fix  bad  ha- 
bits upon  the  organs  of  speech  employed,  and  debauch 
the  ear  so  as  to  interfere  seriously  with  the  ultimate 
acquisition  of  a  good  pronunciation. 

At  present  the  student  should  avoid  pronunciation 
altogether,  if  possible,  letting  his  eye  alone  know  the 
words,  without  attaching  to  them  any  idea  of  sound 
whatever. 

Many  people  find  it  impossible  to  do  this,  but  they 
may  at  least  avoid  the  actual  pronouncing  of  the  words 


THE   STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES.  61 

BO  that  their  bad  pronuuciation  may  be  mental  only, 
and  not  fix  itself  upon  the  organs  of  speech. 

M.  Marcel  thinks  it  would  be  better  for  the  student 
who  must  attach  some  idea  of  sound  to  the  printed 
words,  to  let  that  idea  be  precisely  what  it  would  be 
were  the  same  combinations  of  letters  to  occui-  in  Eng- 
lish, so  that  when  he  shall  come  to  learn  the  pronunci- 
ation correctly,  he  may  not  be  embarrassed  by  the  ne- 
cessity of  correcting  approximate  but  erroneous  ideas 
previously  conceived. 

The  student  should  continue  his  translating  as  rapid- 
ly as  practicable.  What  he  wants  is  to  become  familiar 
with  the  words  and  phrases  of  the  language  in  actual 
use,  and  the  more  he  reads  the  oftener  will  each  of 
these  present  itself. 

Repetition  is  the  mother  of  memory,  in  the  matter  of 
language.  The  student  learns  and  remembers  the  ex- 
act force  of  an  expression  only  from  its  repeated  ap- 
pearance in  the  text,  and  the  more  pages  he  shall  read, 
the  more  fi-equently  each  word  and  phrase  will  occur, 
and  the  more  he  will  learn  of  the  language. 

At  first,  of  course,  he  will  find  a  few  words  whose 
meaning  he  cannot  discern  even  by  the  light  of  his  En- 
glish translation.  For  these,  and  for  these  only  he 
should  consixLt  his  dictionary,  remembering  that  it  is 
better  always  to  learn  the  meaning  of  a  word  from  its 
use,  when  that  is  possible,  than  from  the  verbal  transla- 
tion of  a  dictionary.  For  a  while  it  wiU  be  necessary 
to  go  over  every  passage  two  or  three  times,  in  order 
that  its  full  meaning  may  become  clear,  and  its  phrases 
be  fixed  in  the  memory.  After  a  while  this  will  cease 
to  be  necessary. 

As  the  student  goes  on  he  will  rapidly  learn  the 


62  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOUKSELP. 

meanings  and  the  nses  of  words  and  of  idiomatic  ex- 
pressions. As  this  knowledge  coines  to  him  ho  must 
gi-adually  become  independent  of  his  Enghsh  transla- 
tion, and  learn  to  rely  ujDon  his  cAvn  increasing  know- 
ledge of  the  language.  Beginning  with  the  two  texts 
in  i>arallel  columns,  his  second  or  third  book  should  bo 
wholly  in  the  original,  and  his  translation  in  a  separate 
volume,  so  that  he  may  only  refer  to  it  as  occasion  shall 
require. 

"When  he  can  dispense  with  the  translation  except  for 
very  difficult  sentences,  it  will  be  well  to  use  books  with 
marginal  or  foot-notes  in  which  the  very  difficult  pas- 
sages only  are  rendered,  and  to  substitute  for  his 
French-Enghsh  or  German-English  dictionary,  as  the 
case  may  be,  one  written  wholly  in  the  language  he  is 
learning,  in  which  definitions  in  that  language  take  the 
place  of  translations  into  English. 

But  it  cannot  be  too  strongly  impressed  upon  the  stu- 
dent that  we  learn  the  true,  exact  and  perfect  meanings 
of  words  only  by  induction  after  seeing  them  i;sed  in  a 
variety  of  ways.  "We  may  commit  definitions  to  mem- 
ory, but  we  get  at  the  ti'ue  meaning  of  words  only  from 
their  actual  use.  This  is  true  to  a  great  extent  of  our 
own  language,  and  still  more  largely  of  a  foreign  one. 
"When  we  first  meet  a  word  in  a  sentence  we  gain  an 
imperfect  idea  of  its  meaning,  or  we  learn  one  side  of 
its  meaning.  When  it  occurs  in  other  relations  we 
grasp  it  more  perfectly,  and  after  we  have  seen  it  used 
a  number  of  times  we  learn  it  in  all  its  fullness,  and 
henceforth  know  all  its  purpose  and  power. 

This  inductive  process  is  the  basis  of  the  system  now 
under  consideration,  and  to  cultivate  the  habit  of  in- 
duction the  learner  must  work  out  for  himself  the 


THE  STUDY  OP  LANGUAGES.  63 

meaning  of  each  word  in  his  text,  as  far  as  possible 
without  having  recourse  to  his  dictionary. 

When  the  student  finds  translating  without  the  use 
of  a  printed  translation  thoroughly  easy,  which  is  to 
Bay,  when  he  shall  have  learned  the  use  and  meaning  of 
most  of  the  words  and  phrases  of  the  language  in  hand 
so  that  he  can  readily  render  the  text  into  its  English 
equivalent,  he  should  set  himself  earnestly  to  the  work 
of  learning  to  read  in  that  language  without  translat- 
ing it  at  all,  as  before  explained. 

If  he  has  taken  care  to  practice  this  with  single 
phrases  as  he  has  gone  on,  the  purpose  will  now  be 
much  more  easily  accomplished  than  it  otherwise 
would  have  been.  He  should  begin  it  with  the  book 
last  translated,  because  his  familarity  with  the  text  will 
greatly  facilitate  his  work.  At  first  he  will  find  it  a 
httle  difficult,  perhaps,  to  grasp  the  meaning  from  the 
text  without  the  mental  act  of  translation,  but  a  very 
httle  practice  will  enable  him  to  do  this,  and  by  con- 
stantly reading  in  this  way,  he  will  gradually  learn  to 
think  in  the  language,  so  that  he  can  mentally  or  in 
writing  frame  his  thoughts  into  the  forms  of  the  tongue 
he  is  learning  without  first  conceiving  them  in  Eng- 
Hsh. 

When  he  can  do  this  readily,  he  wiU  be  able  to  ap- 
preciate the  literature  of  that  language,  and  to  read  it 
with  a  full  measure  of  profit,  which  he  never  can  do  so 
long  as  he  mentaUy  translates  it  into  his  own  native 
idicm. 

THE   TIME   NECESSAKY. 

With  a  vast  number  of  students  this  is  all  that  is 
wanted  of  foreign  languages.     They  wish  to  read  and 


04  HOW  TO  EDUCATE   YOUESELlf. 

profit  by  the  literature  of  other  nations,  and  have  nc 
especial  need  or  desire  to  know  the  spoken  tongue. 
They  stop  when  their  purpose  is  accomplished,  and  if 
this  be  the  limit  of  their  purpose,  they  will  naturally 
want  to  know  how  long  it  will  take  them  to  reach  it. 

To  such  a  question  no  answer  of  universal  applica- 
tion can  be  given.  The  time  will  vary  considerably  by 
reason  of  diflferences  of  mental  habit  and  differing  de- 
grees of  application  and  of  daily  leisure.  Bat  a  rea- 
sonably apt  pupil,  who  can  give  two  or  three  hours  a 
day  to  his  work,  and  who  works  earnestly,  should  be 
able  to  master  this  much  of  any  modern  European 
language  within  six  months. 

M.  Marcel  thinks  that  length  of  time  should  suffice 
for  this  and  considerably  more,  but  his  estimate  is  pro- 
bably based  upon  his  own  experience  when  he  gave  his 
whole  time  and  attention  to  the  matter  in  hand,  which 
few  students  of  course  can  do. 

The  dead  languages  are  learned  somewhat  less  rapid- 
ly than  the  spoken  ones,  but  they  may  be  learned,  as 
this  much  of  modern  languages  may,  without  any  as- 
sistance from  teachers.  Here,  as  everywhere  else,  a 
competent  teacher  will  greatly  assist  the  student,  of 
course,  but  this  much  of  language  the  student,  with  or 
without  a  teacher,  must  really  learn  for  himself,  and 
there  is  no  reason  why  the  want  of  an  instructor  should 
deter  any  earnest  student  from  undertaking  to  so  far 
master  a  language  as  to  read  it,  to  write  it,  and  to 
think  in  it. 

LEARNING   TO    UNDEESTAND   THE   SPOKEN   TONGUE. 

Every  young  child  hears  the  conversations  around  it, 
and  after  a  while  it  begins  to  understand  what  is  said. 


THE   STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES.  65 

At  first  every  spoken  sentence  falls  on  its  ear  in  a  con- 
fused jumble  of  sound,  which  not  only  means  nothing, 
but  is  so  confused  that  the  child  cannot  even  separate 
the  words  fi'om  each  other,  or  determine  just  what 
Bounds  are  really  uttered.  Little  by  little,  however,  as 
the  same  sounds  are  repeated  again  and  again  in  its 
presence,  it  begins  to  distinguish  them  from  each  other 
with  a  constantly  increasing  accuracy,  until  it  learns  at 
last  what  certain  sets  of  these  sounds  mean.  After  this 
comes  its  first  effort  to  pronounce  the  words  it  has 
heard. 

The  order  of  the  process  is  understanding  first, 
speaking  afterwards,  and  it  is  precisely  in  this  order 
that  we  should  put  them  in  learning  any  foreign 
tongue.  Our  organs  of  speech  are  exactly  like  those 
of  Frenchmen,  or  Germans,  or  Spaniards,  and  there  is 
no  word  in  their  languages  which  we  may  not  learn  to 
pronounce  quite  as  well  as  they.  But  the  difference  in 
the  pronunciation  of  a  native  and  a  foreigner  in  any 
language,  lies  chiefly  in  the  niceties  of  sound,  and  it 
arises  almost  wholly  from  the  fact  that  the  foreign  ear 
has  not  been  educated  into  the  power  of  distinguishing 
these  niceties  of  sound  in  a  language  other  than  its 
own. 

At  first  every  foreign  language  is  a  confused  jumble 
to  our  ears,  just  as  all  language  is  to  the  child,  and  we 
must  learn  to  hear  it  understandingly,  just  as  the  child 
leaiais  to  hear  his  mother  tongue.  When  French  is 
spoken  in  our  presence,  if  we  know  no  French,  it  is 
impossible  for  us  to  separate  the  words  from  each  other, 
and  more  than  this,  we  cannot  accurately  repeat  after 
the  speakers  the  shortest  of  phrases,  giving  the  sounds 
as  they  give  them. 


66  HOW  TO   EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

To  our  ears  our  imitation  is  exact,  but  to  the  Frencn- 
man  it  is  painfully  wide  of  the  mark.  I  once  knew  a 
French  gentleman  who  said  that  he  lived  in  this  country 
and  spoke  English  for  ten  years  before  he  was  able  to 
discover  the  slightest  difference  in  sound  between  the 
words  "  tree  "  and  "  three,"  even  when  they  were  utter- 
ed with  the  utmost  care  for  the  purpose  of  making  the 
distinction  clear  to  him.  In  other  words,  it  took  ten 
years  of  culture  to  enable  his  ear  to  discover  a  difference 
of  sound  so  marked  as  this. 

This  much  by  way  of  illustration  on  a  point  which 
cannot  be  too  strongly  insisted  upon,  though  it  is  one 
which  both  teachers  and  pupils  often  overlook, — to  wit 
that  the  education  of  the  ear  should  come  before  that 
of  the  tongue, — that  we  must  learn  to  catch  and  under- 
stand the  sounds  of  the  language  before  we  can  learn  to 
utter  them,  and  that  to  attempt  the  latter  before  attend- 
ing to  the  former  can  only  result  in  bad  vocal  habits 
difficult  to  overcome. 

It  is  for  these  reasons  that  we  divide  this  part  of  the 
student's  work  into  two  separate  tasks, — learning  to  un- 
derstand the  spoken  tongue,  and  learning  to  speak  it. 

In  ordinary  practice  the  distinction  is  made  loosely 
when  it  is  made  at  all,  and  a  great  many  teachers  begin 
teaching  the  pronunciation  at  the  outset,  even  before  the 
student  has  begun  to  translate. 

To  some  extent  the  four  parts  into  which  the  task  oi 
learning  a  language  is  divided,  overlap  each  other,  of 
course,  and  they  neither  can  nor  should  be  wholly  sepa- 
rated, but  it  is  in  every  way  best  that  the  student  shall 
take  them  up  in  the  order  here  given,  letting  them 
run  into  each  other  where  they  do  so  naturally,   but 


THE   STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES.  67 

treating  them,  in  the  main,  as  separate  parts  of  the  woi-k 
xio  has  undertaken. 

We  have  ah-eady  seen  that  before  we  can  learn  to 
Bpeak  a  language  properly  we  must  so  educate  our  ear 
as  to  distinguish  its  sounds  nicely,  whether  they  be  ut- 
tered separately  in  syllables,  or  combined  into  words 
and  sentences.  We  must  learn  to  hear  the  language 
before  we  can  learn  to  speak  it,  and  this  can  be  learned 
only  through  the  ear. 

Books  do  not  address  themselves  to  the  ear,  and 
therefore  books  can  never  teach  us  either  to  hear  or  to 
speak.  For  this,  and  for  this  only  in  the  study  of 
language,  a  teacher  is  absolutely  necessary.  The  stu- 
dent cannot  learn  it  by  himself,  and  no  book  can  assist 
him.  He  must  have  a  teacher,  but  any  person  native  to 
the  tongue,  who  can  read  it,  will  do  for  a  teacher,  if  he 
be  instructed  a  little  in  the  art  of  teaching  what  he 
knows,  and  hence  I  give  here  some  suggestions  as  to 
how  the  ear  and  the  tongue  can  best  be  trained,  so  that 
in  the  absence  of  a  competent  teacher  the  student  may 
be  able  to  make  use  of  any  person  who  speaks  the  lan- 
guage as  a  mother  tongue,  himself  instructing  his  teach- 
er how  to  proceed.  A  very  small  expenditure  for  the 
services  of  some  such  person  will  thus  cover  the  whole 
cost  of  learning  the  language. 

It  matters  little,  in  this  case,  whether  the  teacher  un-* 
derstands  English  or  not.  All  that  is  required  of  him 
is  a  correct  pronunciation  of  his  own  language. 

The  teacher  should  begin  with  a  book  which  the  stu- 
dent has  recently  read,  one  with  which  he  is  thoroughly 
familiar.  At  first  he  should  pronounce  slowly  and  dis- 
tinctly the  words  of  the  book,  while  the  student  listens, 
with  the  text  before  him.     A  phrase  at  a  time  carefully 


68  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF 

uttered,  and  as  nearly  as  possible  with  the  conversation- 
al accent,  will  soon  enable  the  student  to  follow  without 
looking  at  the  text,  if  it  be  a  familiar  one,  and  as  soon 
as  this  can  be  done  at  all  the  use  of  the  eye  should  be 
dispensed  with,  so  that  the  unassisted  ear  may  be 
brought  into  full  activity. 

When  any  sound  is  not  accurately  caught  by  the  stu- 
dent, or  W'hen  it  does  not  carry  its  full  meaning  with  it, 
he  should  stop  his  teacher  and  have  the  words  spoken 
again  and  again  until  their  sound  and  their  sense  are 
perfectly  clear.  When  exercises  of  this  sort  become 
easy,  the  teacher  must  read  whole  sentences  at  once 
without  dividing  them  into  their  clauses,  and  as  soon 
as  the  student  can  follow  him  in  them  he  should  begin 
to  increase  the  rapidity  of  his  reading,  taking  care  that 
the  increase  each  day  is  so  slight  that  the  student  does 
not  lose  either  the  sound  or  the  sense  of  what  is 
read. 

When  the  student's  proficiency  is  such  that  he  can 
readily  comprehend  a  familiar  text,  read  rapidly,  one 
less  familiar  should  be  substituted,  and  a  very  few 
weeks  of  diligent  application  will  so  train  the  learner's 
ear  that  he  will  have  no  difficulty  in  understanding  any 
book  read  aloud  in  the  language  in  hand. 

It  will  now  be  time  for  him  to  begin  his  efforts  at 
pronunciation.  To  make  earlier  attempts  is  not  only 
useless,  but  positively  injurious.  The  uneducated  ear 
imperfectly  catches  the  foreign  accent,  and  the  tongue 
as  imperfectly^  utters  it.  A  bad  habit  of  ear  is  con- 
firmed and  a  bad  habit  of  tongue  is  created.  But  when 
the  ear  clearly  catches  the  sounds  of  the  language,  so 
that  the  so;ind  is  unmistakable  in  itself,  and  carries  its 
meaning  with  it,  the  tongue  will  be  easily  trained  to  the 


THE   STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES.  69 

power  of  reproducing  it,  and  the  well-schooled  ear  will 
rendily  detect  and  rapidly  cure  the  imperfections  of  the 
tongue's  performances. 

This  postponement  of  the  first  efforts  at  pronuncia- 
tion until  after  the  ear  has  learned  the  language,  will 
not  only  greatly  facilitate  the  learner's  progress,  but 
will  also  make  his  pronunciation,  in  the  end,  much  more 
perfect  than  it  otherwise  could  be. 

As  soon  as  the  learner  is  so  far  advanced  that  he  can 
readily  understand  the  reading  of  his  teacher,  he 
should  begin  the  habit  of  mentally  pronouncing  after 
him,  as  an  additional  preparation  for  the  task  of  learn- 
ing to  speak  the  language,  and  when  he  can  follovv  ra- 
pidly read  prose,  he  should  substitute  poetry  in  its 
stead.  As  verse  is  necessarily  somewhat  involved  in 
style,  it  cannot  be  translated  quite  as  rapidly  as  an  or- 
dinary reader  reads  it,  and  hence  it  is  particularly  valu- 
able at  this  stage  of  the  student's  progress,  because  he 
must  understand  it  in  the  original,  without  translation, 
if  he  understands  it  at  all. 

The  teacher  should  also  talk  with  his  puj^il  only  in 
the  language  he  is  learning,  not  only  for  the  sake  of 
adding  so  much  to  the  exercises,  but  also  because  in 
his  convei'sation  he  will  pronounce  with  the  natural  ac- 
cent, a  thing  which  can  never  be  perfectly  done  in 
reading. 

The  student  who  has  learned  to  read  the  language 
easily  before  beginning  this  part  of  his  task,  should  be 
able  to  understand  the  spoken  tongue  after  a  mouth  or 
six  weeks  of  this  kind  of  practice,  and  he  will  then  be 
prepared  to  enter  upon  the  next  stage  of  his  journey, 
namely — 


70  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 


LEARNING   TO   SIEAK   THE   LANGUAGE. 

In  learning  to  pronounce  a  foreign  tongue  the  one 
thing  to  be  guarded  against  is  error.  It  is  far  easier 
and  infinitely  better  to  avoid  error  than  to  correct  it. 
A  word  once  mispronounced  is  more  difficult  to  man- 
age afterwards  than  one  that  has  not  been  attempted  at 
all. 

For  this  reason  it  is  better  not  to  begin  this  part  of 
the  task  at  all  until  the  ear  is  pretty  well  skilled  in  its 
function,  after  which  the  pronunciation  is  readily  and 
correctly  mastered.  But  even  when  this  precaution  has 
been  taken,  the  student  should  attempt  no  word  until 
he  is  sure  that  he  knows  its  exact  sound,  to  which  end 
the  teacher  should  begin  by  pronouncing  a  very  short 
phrase  two  or  three  times,  slowly  and  distinctly,  the 
pupil  listening  until  he  is  sure  that  he  has  mastered  it 
with  his  ear.  When  this  has  been  done  he  should  take 
it  up  in  his  tarn,  saying  it  over  until  it  falls  from  his 
tongue  without  conscious  effort. 

If  he  pronounces  wrong,  the  teacher  must  stop  him 
and  repeat  the  process  from  the  first. 

After  a  little  time  the  length  of  the  phrases  may  be 
increased,  gradually,  until  the  pupil  can  repeat  whole 
sentences,  slowly  at  first, — more  rapidly  afterwards.  Aa 
the  teacher  reads,  the  pupil  should  attend  with  his  ear 
only,  not  looking  at  the  printed  page,  but  taking  the 
words  from  their  articulate  rather  than  their  written 
form.  That  this  may  be  the  more  perfectly  done,  the 
student  should  wholly  abstain  from  reading  aloud  until 
his  pronunciation  is  fixed.  He  should  learn  the  spo- 
ken language  wholly  through  his  ear.     He  may  retain 


THE  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES.  71 

it  afterwards  by  reading  aloud,  but  it  cannot  be  learn- 
ed satisfactorily  in  that  way. 

There  are  some  languages,  however,  in  which  the  or- 
thography and  pronunciation  bear  a  constant  and  uni- 
form relation  to  each  other — languages  in  which  every 
letter,  and  every  combination  of  letters,  has  its  fixed  and 
certain  sound.  In  these,  reading  aloud  as  an  auxiliary 
exercise  is  well  enough.  In  these,  too,  a  very  brief 
tutelage  will  give  the  student  all  the  sounds  of  the  lan- 
guage, and  enable  him  by  reading  to  perfect  his  pronun- 
ciation of  all  the  words,  without  further  assistance  from 
a  master. 

When  the  student  shall  have  learned  to  pronounce 
most  of  the  words  in  common  use,  he  has  only  to  prac- 
tice his  art,  both  by  reading  and  by  conversation  with 
bis  teacher,  to  make  himself  as  nearly  perfect  in  speak- 
ing the  language  as  it  is  practically  possible  for  EngUsh- 
speaking  people  to  become.  Should  he  be  surrounded 
by  people  to  whom  the  language  is  a  mother  tongue,  he 
will  of  course  talk  with  them  only  in  their  native 
idiom  ;  but  where  this  is  not  the  case,  some  care  is  ne- 
cessary to  prevent  the  gradual  loss  of  the  power  to 
speak  in  the  acquired  idiom. 

Reading  aloud  without  hearex-s  is  not  a  pleasing  task, 
and  hearers  sufficiently  proficient  to  follow  the  reader 
are  not  always  to  be  found.  To  supply  this  want  it  ia 
well  to  commit  passages  from  books  to  memory,  and  to 
repeat  them  frequently  aloud.  In  other  words,  the  art 
of  pronouncing  a  foreign  language  when  once  acquired 
can  only  be  retained  by  practicing  it,  and  anything 
which  furnishes  occasion  for  practice  is  useful  to  thia 
end. 

I  Lave  thus  given  the  spirit  of  this  much  of  M.  Mar« 


72  now  TO   EDUCATE  YOUESELP. 

eel's  system,  condensing  it  .is  f:u'  as  it  is  practical  to 
do  so,  and  altering  its  details  wherever  I  have  thoiTght 
a  change  desirable  to  adajit  it  more  perfectly  to  the  uses 
of  that  class  of  students  for  whom  chiefly  these 
pages  are  written.  In  making  these  alterations  ol 
detail,  however,  I  have  taken  care  not  to  depart  from 
the  principle  on  which  his  system  is  based. 

I  omit  wholly  the  remainder  of  his  teachings,  — all 
that  he  says  about  learning  the  conversational  idiom  so 
that  the  pupil's  thoughts  will  flow  in  it  freely,  and 
all  of  the  chapters  on  the  Art  of  Writing,  on  Mental 
Culture,  and  on  Routine.  Parts  of  these  have  no  prac- 
tical value  to  students  without  a  master,  as  they  refer 
chiefly  to  the  art  of  teaching  rather  than  to  that  of 
learning.  Other  parts  are  wholly  foreign  to  the  pur- 
poses of  this  volume. 

As  to  the  art  of  writing  a  foreign  language,  I  deem  it 
unnecessaiy  to  say  anything,  inasmuch  as  it  follows,  al- 
most without  effort,  the  art  of  reading.  Any  one  who 
can  read  French,  for  instance,  sufiieiently  well  to  appre- 
ciate the  text  without  translating  it,  can  hardly  fail  to 
write  it  well,  with  very  little  practice. 

THE   EOBEETSONIAN     SYSTEM. 

Another  very  admirable  system  of  learning  foreign 
languages  is  that  of  Professor  Robertson.  In  its  gen- 
eral design  it  closely  resembles  the  plan  already  sketch- 
ed, and  in  many  respects  it  is  but  a  practical  application 
of  the  principles  elaborated  in  M.  Marcel's  work, 
though  there  are  some  important  points  of  difference 
between  the  two  plans. 

The  Robertsonian  text-books  are  prepared  for  use  in 
schools,  and   have  therefore  many  things  in  them,  of 


THE   STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES.  73 

which  the  student  without  a  master  cannot  make  use, 
but  omitting  these,  the  books  themselves  may  be  used 
with  advantage  by  any  class  of  learners. 

The  text  consists  of  a  simple  story,  so  ingeniously 
constructed  that  its  telling  involves  all  the  idioms  of 
the  language  to  be  learned,  in  succession,  repeating 
each  constantly,  so  that  even  in  his  earliest  lessons  the 
student  becomes  familiar  with  all  the  peculiarities  of 
structure  and  phraseology,  which  under  the  old  systems 
of  teaching  presented  the  chief  difficulties  in  his  path, 

A  portion  of  the  text  is  taken  up  in  each  lesson,  and 
printed  with  a  slavish,  verbal,  English  translation  ihter- 
lined.  This  is  followed  by  a  translation  into  good  En- 
glish. Then  follow  a  series  of  questions  and  answers, 
and  sentences  for  oral  translation,  made  up  exclusively 
of  words  and  phrases  fi"om  the  text,  which  furnish 
from  the  first  admirable  exercises  in  double  translation, 
and  also  rapidly  train  the  pupil  in  the  art  of  thinking 
in  the  language  he  is  leai'niug,  and  reading  it  without 
translating. 

This  much  of  each  lesson  is  designed  for  those  who 
wish  to  learn  the  language  rapidly  and  practically. 
Appended  to  each  of  these  lessons  is  a  grammatical  dis- 
sertation for  the  benefit  of  those  who  desire  to  study 
the  tongue  critically  as  they  go  on. 

The  system  dispenses,  as  Mai'cel's  does,  with  the  use 
of  a  dictionary,  and  the  text-books  are  provided  with 
abundant  instruction  as  to  the  manner  of  their  use,  so 
that  the  student  who  shall  adopt  them  will  need  no 
guidance  of  this  sort  here. 

On  the  whole  I  prefer  the  system  already  sketched 
to  that  of  Professor  Robertson,  but  the  two  are  so 
neaiOy  the  same  in  principle  that  the  student  cannot  err 


74  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

greatly  in  selecting  cither,  and  wliether  he  shall  follow 
the  one  or  the  other,  his  progress  will  be  far  more  ra- 
pid than  it  could  possibly  be  on  the  old  gi'amraar  and 
dictionary  plan. 

Before  quitting  this  subject  let  me  give  a  word  of 
warning  to  the  student — let  me  remind  him  that  in  aU 
education,  beyond  what  is  necessary  to  supply  the  im- 
mediate business  wants  of  the  man,  culture  is  of  more 
value  than  learning  ;  and  with  this  fact  before  him  the 
student  will  readily  understand  why  I  say  that  one 
language  thoroughly  mastered  is  better  than  a  dozen 
half  learned. 

If  he  has  taken  up  French,  let  him  follow  that  alone, 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  tongues,  until  he  shall  have 
so  far  mastered  its  principles  as  to  read  it  freely  and 
easily.  Not  until  he  shall  have  done  this  wUl  it  be  wise 
for  him  to  begin  the  study  of  another  Ismguage. 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE  jaiGSER    MATHEMATICS. 

THE  KATUEE  AND  VALUE  OF  MATHEMATICAL  STUDY. 

We  have  already  had  something  to  say  in  regard  to 
the  value  of  mathematical  study,  in  the  practical  useful- 
ness of  its  teachings  and  in  the  culture  it  brings  with 
it.  The  practical  uses  of  mathematical  knowledge  are 
apparent  on  every  hand,  and  the  culture  incident  to 
olose,  exact  study  scarcely  needs  mention. 

But  there  are  circumstances  which  affect  the  relative 
value  of  the  mathematics  as  compared  with  other  studies, 
and  it  is  necessary  that  the  student  who  must  content 
himself  with  a  partial  education,  shall  have  these  in 
mind  in  determining  how  much  of  the  mathematics  he 
will  undertake.  So  far  as  the  bread  and  butter  utility 
of  this  or  any  other  kind  of  study  goes, — so  far  as  the 
question  is  one  of  the  market  value  of  the  learning  to  be 
gained,  the  student  will  have  no  difficulty  in  deciding  for 
himself,  as  in  this  respect  his  decision  is  dependent  al- 
most wholly  upon  the  nature  of  his  proposed  business 
in  life.  If  he  is  making  an  engineer  or  a  mechanician 
of  himself,  he  needs  to  know  all  he  can  learn  of  ma- 
thematical principle   and    mathematical    fact.      If  ha 


76  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF, 

•would  be  a  lawyer,  or  a  merchant,  or  a  physician,  his 
practical  needs  in  this  matter  do  not  go  beyond  a  good 
knowledge  of  arithmetic. 

In  the  matter  of  culture,  however,  the  case  is  very 
differeui  If  the  student's  business  or  circumstances 
are  hkely  to  require  a  habit  of  close,  exact  reasoning, 
careful  analysis,  and  minute  investigation,  he  needs  ex- 
actly the  culture  which  a  study  of  the  mathematics  will 
give  him.  If  his  habits  of  mind  are  loose  and  careless, 
— if  he  knows  himself  prone  to  jump  at  conclusions, 
and  to  accept  opinions  upon  insufficient  evidence,  if  he 
lacks  the  power  or  the  habit  of  discriminating  nicely 
between  the  probable  and  the  proved,  he  needs  the  cul- 
ture incident  to  mathematical  study,  more  than  disci- 
pline of  any  other  sort,  and  should  therefore  give  the 
mathematics  as  large  a  place  as  possible  in  the  course 
he  is  marking  out  for  himself. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  his  intellectual  wants  are  of  a 
wholly  different  character,  as  is  often  the  case,  and  he 
has  but  limited  time  at  his  disposal,  he  may  spend  that 
time  in  something  more  prolitable  to  him,  at  least  than 
mathematics. 

Again,  in  some  cases,  there  may  be  occasion  for  some 
drilling  in  mathematical  habits,  without  the  recessity 
which  exists  in  others  for  a  complete  covu'se  of  the 
kind. 

The  question  in  every  case  must  be  decided  by  the 
circumstances  surrounding  that  case,  and  these  circum- 
stances the  student  only  can  know  fully.  He  should 
ascertain  precisely  what  his  wants  are,  in  the  matter  oi 
culture  as  well  as  in  that  of  learning,  and  govern  him- 
self accordingly. 


THE   HIGHER  MATHEMATICS.  77 


THE    PROCESSES. 

The  ideal  text-book  in  mathematics  is  one  which  ex- 
plains eveiy  principle  in '  the  order  of  its  use,  and  after 
explaining  it,  gives  the  student  exercises  which  enable 
him  to  grasp  it  and  to  fasten  it  in  his  mind.  The  actual 
text-book  falls  considerably  short  of  this,  as  every 
teacher  knows,  and  every  student  finds  out. 

But  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  mathematical  text- 
books are  better  adapted  to  their  purpose  than  text- 
books of  any  other  kind,  and  there  is  nothing  to  pre- 
vent any  student  of  ordinary  mathematical  capacity 
from  proceeding  alone  from  elementary  Algebra  to  the 
Calculus,  with  no  assistance  other  than  that  of  his  text- 
books. Indeed,  all  there  is  known  of  mathematics  was 
wrought  out  originally  without  even  this  assistance. 

The  exactitude  of  mathematical  processes  is  such  that 
the  text-books  must  of  necessity  furnish  nearly  all  the 
aid  any  earnest  student  can  wish,  and  hence  there  is 
comparatively  httle  for  us  to  say  here  as  to  the  manner 
of  pursuing  studies  of  this  class.  A  word  or  two,  how- 
ever, may  be  of  service  alike  to  students  in  and  out  of 
school. 

THE   OBDER   OF   STUDIES. 

In  regard  to  the  order  in  which  the  several  branches 
of  the  mathematics  are  to  be  studied,  there  is  very  little 
variation. 

We  must  begin  with  algebra,  of  necessity,  as  it  is  the 
basis  of  all  the  rest,  and  while  many  teachers  put 
their  pupils  into  geometry,  as  soon  as  they  are  fairly 
grounded  in  the  elements  of  algebra,  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  plan  is  in  every  way  a  bad  one,  giving  birth 


78  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

to  much  troiable  thi'oughout  the  remainder  of  llie 
course,  and  ending  in  imperfect  scholarship  at  last. 
Such  a  course  is  especially  bad  when  the  student  has 
no  master,  and  I  have  rarely  known  a  case  in  which 
the  attempt,  on  the  part  of  a  self-taught  student,  has 
not  resulted  either  in  a  complete  breaking  down  and 
an  abandonment  of  the  mathematics  altogether,  or  in  a 
system  of  empirical  study  requiring  all  the  woi'k  and 
giving  none  of  the  culture  incident  to  a  complete  mas- 
tery of  the  science. 

The  better  plan  is  to  take  up  first  a  book  on  elemen- 
tary algebra,  and  to  master  it  absolutely.  This  should 
be  followed  by  Davies'  Bourdon,  and  when  the  student 
shall  have  completed  that,  his  road  through  all  the  re- 
mainder of  the  mathematics  will  be  both  an  open  and 
an  easy  one. 

With  Geometry,  Plane  and  Spherical  Trigonometry, 
Analytical  Geometry,  Navigation  and  Surveying,  which 
are  the  branches  commonly  studied  before  the  Differen- 
tial and  Integral  Calculus  is  taken  up,  the  order  in  which 
I  have  placed  them  here  is  as  good  as  any  other. 

None  of  them  will  present  any  formidable  difficulty 
to  the  student  who  has  begun  by  making  his  knowledge 
of  algebra  complete,  and  where  this  has  been  done,  the 
studies  enumerated  above  should  not,  in  the  aggregate, 
demand  more  time  or  more  work  than  was  necessary  to 
the  mastery  of  algebra. 

In  other  words,  algebra,  if  learned  thoroughly,  is  in 
time  and  labor  about  half  the  ordinary  collegiate  course 
of  j)ure  mathematics.* 

*  Surveying  and  Navigation  are.  properly,  applied  and  not  pure  mathemat> 
ICB,  but  for  the  sate  of  convenience  I  follow  here  the  conwuon  classi&catioiu 


THE    HIGHER  MATHEMATICS.  79 


THK   WAT    TO    STUDY   ALGEBRA. 

When  you  begin  the  study  of  algebra,  remember  that 
it  is  fact  from  beginning  to  end  ;  that  it  has  been  dis- 
covered, and  not  invented  ;  that  every  operation  is  the 
appHcation  of  one  or  more  principles,  and  that  a  know- 
ledge of  the  operations  is  worth  nearly  nothing  when 
the  principles  governing  them  are  not  fully  understood. 
What  has  been  said  on  this  point  with  regard  to  the  study 
of  arithmetic,  is,  if  possible,  even  more  strongly  appli- 
cable to  that  of  algebra. 

Beginning  with  a  clear  comprehension  of  these 
points,  the  student  should,  as  far  as  possible,  follow  the 
original  process  by  which  the  principles  of  algebra  were 
evolved  from  each  other.  He  should  begin  with  a  full 
understanding  that  the  science  of  abstract  numbers  is  a 
complete  structure,  made  of  many  parts,  each  of  which 
was  learned  in  the  beginning  from  those  which  precede 
it,  and  as  far  as  possible  he  should  build  the  structure 
piece  by  piece  for  himself.  To  a  great  extent  this  may 
be  done  without  a  close  following  of  the  book,  and 
where  this  is  the  case  the  text-book  should  be  used  only 
as  a  general  guide,  and  as  a  mentor  for  the  verification 
of  work  and  the  correction  of  error. 

Where  it  is  necessary  to  follow  the  book  strictly,  the 
student  should  endeavor  not  only  to  comprehend  each 
principle,  but  to  discover  also  just  how  it  follows  from 
those  that  have  preceded  it,  and  how  others  are  to 
grow  out  of  it. 

Almost  every  new  principle  will  be  found  to  rest  upon 
two  or  three  jDreviously  learned,  each  being  a  corollary 
not  ordinarily  from  any  single  principle,  but  from  a 


80  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

combination  of  several,  and  this  synthetical  process, 
while  it  serves  to  make  the  student's  progress  in  mathe- 
matical study  much  more  rapid  and  greatly  more  satis- 
factory than  it  otherwise  would  be,  is  in  itself  the  very 
best  intellectual  exercise  incident  to  this  branch  of 
study.  Without  it  one  may  learn  mathematics,  though 
not  quite  so  thoroughly  as  with  it,  but  in  omitting  it  he 
loses  the  greater  and  better  part  of  the  mental  disci- 
pline and  culture  to  be  derived  from  mathematical 
studies. 

Moreover  this  habit  serves  still  another  purpose  in 
makmg  a  stud}'^  fascinating  which  is  otherwise  jiroverb- 
ially  dry  and  uninteresting  to  the  majority  of  students. 
Once  formed,  the  habit  should  be  continued  through- 
out the  course,  but  I  dwell  upon  it  here  because  algebra 
is  the  basis  of  all  the  other  branches  of  higher  mathe- 
matics, furnishing  the  groundwork  of  them  all,  and 
whatever  is  to  be  done  in  this  regard  must  be  begun  at 
the  bottom. 

A   WAY   OUT    OF   DIFFICULTIES. 

As  a  rule  a  principle  should  be  thoroughly  under- 
stood before  it  is  used  at  all  in  the  working  of  problems, 
but  sometimes  this  is  impossible,  and  when  the  student 
shall  find  it  so,  it  will  be  well  for  him  to  proceed  with 
the  problems,  applying  the  principle,  as  yet  but  imper- 
fectly understood,  as  a  means  of  grasping  it.  Some- 
times the  working  of  a  problem  or  two  will  make  a 
matter  transparent  which  before  was  wholly  incompre- 
sible.  But  in  any  event,  never  leave  a  principle  until 
you  do  understand  it.  Never  go  on  to  others  unti?  you 
know  what  this  one  is,  and  the  reason  for  its  being 


THE  HIGHER  MATHEMATICS.  81 


ANOTHER  WAT   OUT   OF   DIFFICULTIES. 

"When  the  explanations  given  in  the  book,  and  the 
working  of  the  problems,  fail  to  make  the  principle 
stated  as  clear  as  it  should  be  to  the  student's  mind,  he 
should  at  once  resort  to  the  simplest  available  form  of 
using  the  principle,  and  the  result  will  almost  always  be 
entirely  satisfactory. 

Let  me  illustrate  my  meaning,  I  had  a  pupil  once 
who  came  to  a  proposition  something  like  this  in  her 
algebra  : 

ixab  —  ( 2xa  +  6)  =  etc. 

"  By  the  terms  of  this  equation,"   the  book  went  on  to 
Bay,  "  we  have 

Axab  —  2xa  —  6  ="  etc. 
The  pupil  could  not  understand  why,  in  taking  the 
2xa  +  b  out  of  parenthesis,  the  plus  signs  should  be 
changed  to  minus  ones.  She  knew  very  well  that  there 
was  a  rule  to  that  effect  in  the  book,  but  she  was  trying 
to  learn  algebra  rather  than  the  rules  of  algebra,  and  so 
she  sought  an  explanation.  She  had  already  work- 
ed out  three  or  four  problems  involving  this  process  of 
removing  terms  from  parenthesis,  but  had  been  wholly 
unable  to  grasp  the  reasons  for  the  change  of  signs  made. 
I  substituted  figures  for  the  letters  and  wit)te  the  fol- 
lowing, as  different  forms  of  one  equation. 

20  —  (6  +  4)  =  10. 

20  —  6  —  4  =  10. 

20  —  10  =  10. 
Giving  her  this,  I  left  her  to  work  out  the  principle  in- 
volved for  herself,  and  she  soon  discovered  that  the  G 


82  HOW  TO   EDUCATE   YOURSELF. 

and  the  4,  both  positive  quantities,  were  together  to  be 
subtracted,  in  obedience  to  the  minus  sign,  from  20, 
and  the  reason  for  the  change  of  signs  in  removing  the 
figures  from  the  parenthesis  was  apparent  at  once. 

I  strongly  commend  such  a  resort  to  the  simplest 
form  of  arithmetical  or  algebraic  expression  which  can 
be  made  to  involve  the  principle,  as  the  very  best  way 
of  grasping  what  cannot  be  comprehended  at  first  in 
more  abstract  or  complicated  shape. 

The  student  will  have  no  difficulty  in  forming  for 
himself  abundant  exercises  of  this  kind,  adapted  to  his 
particular  wants  as  they  shall  occur. 

RULES. 

In  algebra,  as  in  arithmetic,  the  rules  are  merely  gen- 
eralizations after  the  fact.  As  such  they  are  very  valu- 
able, but  the  student  is  constantly  in  danger  of  losing 
sight  of  their  real  character,  and  treating  them  as  rules 
for  the  solution  of  problems. 

He  should  solve  his  problems  on  principle,  and  take 
the  rules  as  succinct  statements  of  what  he  has  done,— 
not  as  rules  for  what  he  has  to  do.  He  should  remem- 
ber that  these  rules  can  have  been  made  only  by  per- 
sons who  were  already  familiar  with  the  processes  of 
which  they  tell, — that  the  processes  create  the  rule, 
not  the  rule  the  processes.  The  temptation  to  err  here 
is  so  great  that  good  teachers  often  regret  the  presence 
of  any  rules  at  all  in  the  books. 

Not  that  these  concise  generalizations  are  valueless 
by  any  means.  Every  teacher  knows  that  they  may  be 
made  of  very  great  use  to  the  student,  if  only  the 
principles  involved  be  thoroughly  understood  before 
the  formulas  for  their  application  are  learned. 


THE  HIGHEE  MATHEMATICS.  83 

To  the  schoolboy  the  danger  is  far  less  than  to 
the  student  without  a  master,  anxious  to  get  on.  The 
former  is  made  to  explain  his  blackboard  operations, 
and  thus  coinpelled,  to  some  extent  at  least,  to  under- 
stand the  principles  as  he  applies  them.  The  self- 
taught  youth,  on  the  other  hand,  has  no  check  upon 
himself  but  his  own  will,  and  is  therefore  in  constant 
danger  of  making  a  misuse  of  the  rules  in  his  book. 

THE   OTHER   MATHEMATICS. 

We  have  already  seen  that  algebra,  thoroughly  learn- 
ed, is  not  only  about  half  the  mathematical  battle,  but 
is  in  itself  a  key  to  everything  that  follows.  Geometry, 
trigonometry,  etc.,  present  few  difficulties  to  the 
student  who  has  mastered  his  algebi'a  before  taking 
them  up  for  study. 

The  directions  given  for  the  study  of  algebra  are,  in 
the  main,  applicable  to  the  entire  course,  and  there  iS 
little  else  to  be  said  with  reference  to  the  succeeding 
parts  of  the  mathematical  curriculum.  With  a  hint  or 
two  we  will  pass  to  other  things. 

Concrete  study  is  always  better  than  abstract,  and 
self-made  problems  are  usually  better  for  practice  than 
those  given  in  the  books. 

From  first  to  last,  therefore,  the  student  should  seize 
every  possible  opportunity  to  make  problems  for  him- 
self out  of  his  surroundings,  and  whenever  he  can  put 
any  principle  to  a  practical  test  in  actual  affairs,  he  will 
find  it  a  very  excellent  thing  to  do. 

When  he  shall  have  learned  enough  of  mathematics 
to  do  so,  he  will  find  it  a  good  plan  to  measure  dis- 
tances by  triangulation,  beginning  with  distances  which 


84  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

he  can  verify  with  his  tape  line,  and  passing  on  to  the 
width  of  rivers  or  ponds,  and  similar  practical  problems. 

Where  he  studies  surveying,  he  should  at  once  ymi 
an  engineering  party,  if  possible,  doing,  in  time,  all  parts 
of  the  tield  and  chart  work,  and  observing  the  work  ul 
others.  "When  this  is  impracticable  he  should  at  least 
spend  some  weeks  in  amateur  surveying,  using  his 
compass  or  his  transit  instrument  himself,  and  making 
his  own  field  notes.  When  he  shall  have  done  this,  his 
notes  will  furnish  him  abundant  material  for  chart 
making,  and  if  he  has  been  at  all  skillful  in  the  selection 
of  his  ground  he  will  have  at  his  hand  problems  in- 
volving nearly  all  the  principles  his  books  have  taught 
him. 

Mining  and  other  engineering  work,  practical  mecha- 
nics, etc.,  are  within  the  reach  of  almost  every  student 
of  applied  mathematics,  and  the  student  who  would 
perfect  himself  should  neglect  no  opportunity  of  study- 
ing them  thus  practically. 

I  must  add  one  other  suggestion  before  quitting  the 
subject  of  mathematics,  and  that  is  that  the  student, 
especially  if  he  have  no  master,  should  be  himself 
a  teacher  of  others  if  possible.  While  yet  stud^dng 
algebra  he  should  teach  some  one  else  the  parts  over 
which  he  has  passed,  and  so  on  throughout  the  course. 
Teaching  others  is  an  excellent  aid  to  the  learning  of 
anything,  and  I  once  knew  a  young  man  who  learned 
Latin  entirely  by  teaching  it  to  a  younger  brother.  He 
knew  the  earlier  parts  of  the  grammar,  and  began,  half 
in  sport,  to  teach  his  pupil.  The  brother  learned 
rapidly  and  forced  the  teacher  to  learn  in  order  that  he 
might  teach,  and  the  end  was  success  for  botho 

But  teaching  is  especially  valuable  to  the  student  of 


THE   HIGHER  MATHEMATICS.  85 

mathematics,  inasmuch  as  it  requires  constant  analysis 
and  a  constant  explanation  of  the  principles  already 
mastered,  and  is,  withal,  the  best  possible  system  of  re- 
view, where  reviewing  is  most  necessary.  If  a  student 
can  secure  a  pupil  less  advanced  than  himself, 
therefore,  let  him  do  so  by  all  means,  and  let  him  not 
count  the  time  spent  in  teachiufj;  as  Jost,  or  unprofitable 
used. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
pnnrsiCAz  science. 

"We  have  already  seen  that  there  are  two  schools  ol 
thinkers  in  the  matter  of  education,  the  one  ad  vocating 
the  study  of  ancient  languages  as  the  chief  part  of 
higher  education,  while  the  other  estihiates  such  study 
but  hghtly  in  comparison  with  the  learning  of 
physics. 

Each  of  these  schools  is  right,  doubtless,  or  nearly 
so,  in  the  estimate  it  places  upon  its  own  favorite 
branch  of  learning,  but  each  is  equally  wrong,  perhaps, 
in  its  valuation  of  the  other.  The  ideal  education  em- 
braces both  the  classics  and  the  sciences,  and  every 
education  that  can  claim  to  be  anything  like  a  worthy 
one  must  embrace  something,  at  least,  of  each. 

I  have  already  hinted  at  the  practical  importance  of 
scientific  study,  and  I  have  endeavored  to  suggest  some 
of  the  dangers  incident  to  a  too  exclusive  pursuit  of 
learning  of  this  kind.  I  think  the  inherent  and  neces- 
sary tendency  of  the  sciences  to  narrow  specialties  is 
full  of  danger  to  the  student,  particularly  if  his  mind 
is  not  already  balanced  by  a  liberal  culture  in  other 
directions.  Of  course  the  great  work  of  scientific  re- 
search can  only  be  carried  forward  adequately  by  scien- 
tific specialists,  and  we  must  have  such  men  of  neces- 
sity.     But  no  one  of  them   advances  science  much. 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE.  87 

No  one  of  them  grasps  enough  to  do  much  by  himself. 
No  one  of  them  is  a  scientist  in  the  full  sense  of 
the  term.  Each  does  his  little  part,  all  the  more  tho- 
roughly because  it  is  so  small,  and  the  aggregate  result 
is  a  grand  one.  But  these  little  delvers  after  single 
facts,  who  must  confine  their  operations  to  very 
narrow  hmits,  and  hedge  themselves  in  on  every  side 
lest  they  divide  to  wasting,  do  not  furnish  us  models 
of  liberally  educated  men  by  any  means.  * 

The  story  is  told  of  an  old  German  linguist  who  had 
devoted  his  whole  life  to  the  study  of  the  Greek  arti- 
cle, to  the  exclusion  of  everything  else,  that  when  dy- 
ing he  cautioned  his  son  against  the  danger  of  wasting 
his  energies  by  attempting  too  much.  "  This  has  been 
my  own  error  in  life,"  he  said.  "I  have  taken  the 
whole  article  for  a  study,  and  it  is  too  great  for  any  one 
man's  mastery.  I  ought  to  have  confined  myself  to  the 
dative  case." 

The  aggregate  of  such  men's  work  is  a  grand  one, 
and  the  work  is  one  which  could  never  be  done  except 
by  men  willing  to  work  within  these  limits. 

The  world  cannot  spare  men  of  this  kind.  Neither 
can  we  spare  the  toilers  in  mines,  but  the  value  of  their 
work  does  not  in  any  way  lessen  the  peril  it  brings  to 
the  workers. 

Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.    The  scientific  special- 

*  Of  course  I  am  not  now  speaking  of  the  eminent  scientific  men,  who, 
while  they  are  unquestionably  students  of  specialties,  are  also  broadly  culti- 
vated in  tilings  other  than  science,  and  in  science  know  vastly  more  than 
their  chosen  specialties  embrace.  Men  of  this  kind  are  models  for  all  of  us 
and  as  will  be  seen  elsc^^'here,  I  hold  that  to  be  the  best  practical  education 
which  makes  its  possessor  complete  master  of  some  one  thing,  and  rcasonablj 
familiar  with  other  branches  of  human  knowledge.  What  the  student  is  es- 
espsciaUy  urged  to  do  is  to  lay  the  broadest  foundation  of  general  culture 
possible,  and  then  to  dc  what  he  wiehee  to  du  in  any  particular  dii-ection. 


88  now  TO  EDUCATE  lOURSELF. 

ist  does  bis  full  share  of  the  world's  work  and  should 
receive  his  full  share  of  its  honors.  He  does  his  work 
all  the  better  because  he  works  at  but  one  thing.  So 
does  the  man  in  a  watch  factory,  who  knows  nothing 
about  the  manufacture  of  a  watch  except  how  to  cut 
the  cogs  on  a  single  wheel.  Neither  he  nor  any  one  of 
his  hundred  fellows  could  possibly  make  a  watch,  but 
together  they  produce  much  better  watches  than  any 
one  man  can  possibly  make. 

I  say  nothing  against  the  system  of  specialties  as  a 
means  of  forwarding  scientific  investigation.  I  only 
say  that  the  too  exclusive  study  of  specialties  is  not 
the  best  form  of  education  for  the  development  of  well- 
balanced  men,  and  that,  in  this  view  of  the  matter,  the 
tendency  of  all  scientific  study  to  run  into  excess  in 
this  direction  is  a  danger  incident  to  it. 

I  need  not  detail  the  advantages  of  scientific  know- 
ledge. They  are  everywhere  evident,  and  the  tendency 
of  the  age  is  to  exalt  physics,  even  to  the  depreciation 
of  everything  else. 

WHAT    PHYSICS   TO    STUDY. 

The  student  who  can  push  his  education  beyond  the 
narrowest  possible  limits,  will  almost  certainly  wish  to 
learn  something  of  physical  science.  That  he  should 
do  so  there  can  be  no  doubt.  But  there  aie  so  many 
branches  of  scientific  study  that  unless  he  has  some 
special  inducement  to  some  one  of  them  it  will  puzzle 
him  to  determine  just  what  and  how  much  to  take  up. 

There  are  several  points  to  be  considered  in  deciding 
the  question. 

In  the  first  place  the  sciences  are  not  like  the  lan- 
guages.    All  oui"  tongues  are  akin,  it  is  true,  but  they 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE.  89 

are  so  far  separate  and  individual  wholes  that  they 
must  ordinarily  be  treated  as  almost  wholly  distinct, 
when  we  ask  ourselves  which  of  them  we  will  leara.  It 
is  not  so  with  the  sciences.  These  so  far  run  into  each 
other  as  to  be  in  some  sense  one.  They  are  but  parts  of 
a  whole — the  whole  being  nature  in  all  her  conditions. 
They  are  classified  separately,  but  each  involves  some- 
thing of  the  others.  Chemistry  and  natural  philosophy 
underlie  most  of  them,  and  it  is  impossible  to  know  any 
one  of  them  thoroughly  without  knowing  something  of 
at  least  some  of  the  others. 

THE   OBJECT   SOITGHT. 

Now,  with  this  fact  in  mind,  the  student  must  ask 
himself  what  his  purpose  is,  in  the  study  of  science, 
and  how  much  time  he  ought  to  give  to  its  pursuit.  If 
his  object  be  to  advance  himself  in  any  business  in 
which  a  knowledge  of  chemistry,  or  of  botany,  or  of 
mineralogy,  or  of  some  other  branch  of  physics  will  be 
of  special  use,  let  him  by  all  means  pursue  the  study 
needed. 

If  he  simply  wishes  to  become  liberally  educated,  he 
will  want  to  know  all  the  more  commonly  studied 
sciences  at  least  moderately  well. 
.  The  subjects  with  which  the  several  sciences  deal  are 
manifest  enough  to  need  no  explanation,  and  the  stu- 
dent can  make  his  selections  advisedly  from  the  first. 

HOW   TO    STUDY   PHYSICS. 

Science  is  so  largely  experimental,  as  yet,  that  there 
can  be  no  such  thing  as  perfect  and  exact  text-books  on 
the  subject.     The   chemists    thought  for  many  years 


90  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

after  chemistry  became  a  recognized  branch  of  physical 
study,  that  water  was  an  elementary  substance,  and 
when  the  idea  that  it  is  a  compound  was  first  put 
forth,  it  was  stoutly  denied  by  nearly  all  the  chem- 
ists of  the  day.  Now  our  greatest  scientists  do  not  feel 
at  all  certain  that  they  have  as  yet  discovered  any  ab- 
solutely elementary  substance.  They  are  more  confi- 
dent of  carbon  in  this  respect  than  of  anything  else, 
but  they  readily  admit  that  even  carbon  may  prove  to 
be  a  compound.  Everything  about  what  we  ordin- 
arily call  the  sciences  is  in  a  state  of  development  and 
progress.  We  are  learning  new  facts  and  correcting  old 
errors  every  day.  Every  branch  of  scientific  study  ia 
changing  its  teachings,  and  therefore  there  can  be 
nothing  like  permanency  in  the  text-books,  and  none 
but  the  latest  of  these  should  be  used. 

This  is  the  first  point  to  be  observed.  Let  the  stu- 
dent get  the  very  latest  recognized  authorities  in  every 
case,  and  when  he  shall  come  to  study  them,  let  him 
remember  constantly  that  their  statements  of  fact  are 
in  many  cases  only  statements  of  the  best  received  opi- 
nion as  to  facts  still  under  investigation,  and  still  but 
uncertainly  known.  It  is  only  in  this  spirit,  and  with 
this  understanding,  that  he  can  hope  to  benefit  himself 
largely  by  the  study  of  physics. 

The  facts  just  stated  lead,  too,  to  another  injunction. 
The  student  who  would  make  himself  anything  moru 
than  a  mere  parrot  in  his  knowledge  of  physical 
science,  must  be  to  some  extent  a  pioneer.  He  may 
accept  authority  in  a  general  way,  but  he  should  always 
feel  himself  free  to  reverently  doubt  its  conclusions,  and 
to  test  them  for  himself  by  personal  observation  and 
experiment.     There  is  no  other  way   of  accomplish- 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE.  91 

ing  any  worthy  results  in  these  branches  of  human 
learning,  and  I  put  these  cautions  at  the  fore,  for  the 
reason  that  their  absence  results  in  so  many 
failures. 

In  the  study  of  science,  whether  on  a  large  or  small 
scale,  whether  in  a  general  or  a  special  way,  no  in- 
structor is  at  all  necessary  to  the  earnest  student.  The 
rudimentary  parts  are  all  easily  learned  from  the  text- 
books, and  in  our  day  there  is  no  lack  of  able  and  ex- 
haustive treatises  of  a  higher  sort.  All  these  may  be 
mastered  quite  as  well  without  as  with  a  teacher,  and 
while  the  apparatus  and  the  collections  of  specimens  in 
our  colleges  furnish  excellent  aids  to  the  study  of  all 
the  sciences,  their  absence  is  not  fatal  by  any  means. 
Plates  supply  their  places  in  part,  and  a  little  industry 
will  enable  the  student  to  supply  them  still  further  in 
many  ways. 

I  know  a  woman,  living  in  a  retired  country  place, 
who  without  teachers  has  made  herself  an  accom- 
plished botanist,  and  not  only  so,  but  she  has,  little 
by  little,  accumulated  an  herbarium  that  would  do 
honor  to  a  college,  and  her  country  garden  has  a  bo- 
tanical corner  where  she  has  tested  rare  plants  from 
every  quarter  of  the  world. 

I  know  a  young  man,  too — or  rather  a  boy,  for  he  is 
hardly  of  age  yet — who,  with  very  meagre  educational 
advantages  of  any  sort,  has  so  far  mastered  natural 
history  as  to  have  attracted  the  attention  of  distin- 
guished professors,  who  have  been  glad  to  avail  them- 
selves of  his  services  as  an  assistant  in  their  work.  His 
collection  of  specimens,  too,  is  a  very  creditable  one. 

I  mention  these  things  for  the  encouragement  of 
students   who   wish   to    follow    scientific   studies,  but 


92  HOW  TO   EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

doubt  their  ability  to  accomplish  the  purpose  worthily 
without  instructors  and  without  access  to  the  collections 
and  cabinets  of  the  colleges, 

So  fur  as  the  sciences  can  be  learned  from  books  at 
all,  they  may  be  learned  without  masters.  Beyond  this 
the  student  will  ordinarily  have  no  need  to  go,  unless 
he  wishes  to  make  a  specialist  of  himself,  and  in  that 
event  he  must  resort  to  direct  investigation  on  his  own 
account,  attaching  himself,  if  possible  to  scientific 
expeditions,  or  in  some  other  way  securing  the  best 
conditions  of  study  at  his  command. 


CHAPTER  YII. 

MORAIj  and  INTJELZECTTTAL  SCIENCE. 

THE   VALUE   OF    THIS  KIND    OF   STUDY. 

In  marking  out  his  schedule  of  studies  there  is  no 
class  of  subjects  which  the  self-guided  student  so  often 
overlooks  as  that  which  forms  the  subject  of  this  chapter. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  in  the  University  of 
Virginia,  and  other  institutions  where  the  studies  are 
optional,  and  where  men  graduate  separately  in  the 
several  schools,  the  students  who  do  not  work  for  de- 
grees more  frequently  omit  studies  of  this  class  than 
those  of  any  other.  I  have  even  known  students  in 
these  institutions,  who  graduated  in  all  the  schools  but 
this,  and  left  without  degrees,  because  they  deemed  the 
study  of  intellectual  science  so  wholly  valueless  that 
they  could  not  afford  to  devote  to  it  even  the  limited 
time  which  would  have  been  necessary  to  add  its  diplo- 
ma to  their  others,  and  thus  to  secure  their  degree. 

THE   CAUSE   OF   THE    MISTAKE. 

The  mistake  is  a  very  natural  one,  doubtless,  but 
none  the  less  serious  on  that  account. 

In  our  age  and  country  the  utihtarian  idea  has  be- 
come so   strong  that  it  often  transcends  its   proper 


94  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

limits.  People  who  measure  everything  by  its  practical 
value,  are  very  apt  to  see  utility  only  in  those  things 
which  bring  money  to  the  purse  ;  and  further  than  this 
they  nearly  always  fail  to  reach  sound  conclusions  even 
in  this  respect,  by  falling  into  the  error  of  looking  only 
at  the  value  of  the  learning  acquired  in  particular 
studies,  estimating  the  culture  at  nothing. 

A  moment's  reflection  should  show  the  student  the 
fallacy  of  both  of  these  conclusions.  Inasmuch  as 
money  is  by  no  means  the  only  good  to  be  sought  in 
life,  things  which  do  not  add  to  the  ability  to  make 
money  may  be  quite  as  useful  and  quite  as  practical  as 
those  that  do  ;  and  in  estimating  even  the  money  value 
of  education,  the  culture  it  bi'iugs  is  quite  as  worthy 
of  consideration  as  the  learning  incident  to  it. 

THE   VAXUE   OF   THESE   STUDIES    AS   A   MEANS    OF   CULTUBE. 

Now  as  a  means  of  high  culture  there  is  hai-dly  any 
part  of  the  college  course  more  valuable  than  the 
studies  embraced  under  the  general  head  of  moral  and 
intellectual  philosophy.  It  is  true  too  that  these 
studies  are  peculiarly  valuable,  even  if  they  be  mea- 
sured by  the  most  strictly  practical  standard. 

The  object  of  education,  as  we  have  already  seen,  is 
to  fit  the  man  for  life  ;  to  prepare  him  to  fill,  as  per- 
fectly as  possible,  his  place  in  the  world  ;  to  enable  him 
to  do  his  best  work  for  himself  and  for  others,  and  cer- 
tainly no  one  should  doubt  that  the  cultivation  and  de- 
veloiDment  of  the  reasoning  faculties,  and  their  instruc- 
tion in  the  laws  which  should  govern  all  their  opera- 
tions, are  matters  of  moment  to  this  end.  At  every 
step  in  life  we  are  called  upon  to  use  precisely  the  facul- 
ties which  are  cultivated  by  studies  of  this  class,  and  at 


MORAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  SCIENCE.  95 

least  half  the  failures  and  nearly  all  the  blunders  we 
make  result  from  the  imperfect  or  perverse  action  of 
these  faculties. 

Of  course  no  amount  of  training  can  make  our  judg- 
ments perfect,  or  enable  us  to  reason  infallibly  on  any 
speculative  subject  ;  but  from  the  study  of  intellectual 
philosophy  we  learn  the  principles  of  sound  reasoning 
and  cultivate  habits  of  correct  thought,  which  cannot 
fail  to  serve  us  in  good  stead  throughout  life. 

Reason  is  our  crown  of  glory.  It  is  the  ability  to 
reason  that  chiefly  distinguishes  us  from  brute  beasts, 
and  elevates  us  above  them,  and  certainly  there  can  be 
no  pai-t  of  education  more  to  be  desired  than  that 
which  deals  with  this  faculty,  teaches  us  its  nature,  and 
its  laws,  and  trains  us  in  its  use. 

THEIK   VALUE   AS    A   PKEPARATION   FOP.    OTHER   STUDY. 

But  aside  from  all  this,  the  studies  of  this  class  are 
pecuharly  valuable  as  aids  to  the  raastery  of  others. 
The  student  who  has  trained  himself  somewhat  in  the 
ability  to  reason  logically,  and  has  cultivated  that  abili- 
ty by  following  out  the  ratiocinations  of  able  thinkers 
in  the  text-books  which  follow  Logic,  will  find  far  less 
difficulty  in  his  study  of  mathematics  and  the  physical 
sciences  than  he  otherwise  would,  while  the  still  larger 
education  which  comes  from  within  rather  than  from 
without — the  education  of  intelligent  and  systematic 
thought,  can  only  come  fully  to  those  who  have,  in  one 
way  or  another,  cultivated  themselves  in  this  direction. 

Of  course  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  art  of  rea- 
soning correctly  is  wholly  an  art  to  be  learned,  or  that 
there  are  no  studies  other  than  those  we  are  now  con- 
sidering, which  serve  to  cultivate  and  develop  the  facul- 


96  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

tics  in  question.  The  mathematics  do  this  in  a  very 
large  degree,  and  other  studies  help,  too,  in  their  several 
ways.  Even  outside  of  study  altogether,  men  cultivate 
the  reasoning  faculties  constantly.  But  faculties  so  all- 
important  as  these  should  receive  the  best  possible 
training  and  the  fullest  measure  of  it.  It  is  not  enough 
that  we  shall  reason  approximately  well ;  we  need  to  rea- 
son at  our  very  best,  and  to  this  end  we  need  not  only  to 
exercise  and  cultivate  these  faculties  of  mind,  but  also  to 
inform  them  fully  as  to  their  own  processes,  the  rules  that 
should  govern  them,  the  errors  into  which  they  are  apt 
to  fall,  and  the  tests  by  which  the  accuracy  of  their 
operations  can  be  measured.  To  this  end  we  need  to 
Acarn  logic  theoretically  and  to  familiarize  ourselves  with 
its  apphcations  in  the  text-books  which  follow  logic  in 
the  regular  order  of  studies. 


THE   PRACTICAL   WISDOM    OF   THEIK   TEACHINGS. 

'In  addition  to  all  this,  we  find  in  the  course  of  study 
now  under  consideration  much  practical  wisdom  that 
every  man  needs  ;  inasmuch  as  our  moral  perceptions 
are  never  so  keen  or  so  perfect  as  they  should  be,  we 
cannot  fail  to  derive  great  benefit  from  a  study  of  sys- 
tematic ethics.  While  we  are  yet  children  we  may 
govern  ourselves  in  the  matter  morals  by  the  precepts 
of  our  natural  advisers  and  guardians,  but  when  we 
become  men  and  women  we  need  such  a  grounding  in 
the  laws  of  morality  that  we  shall  be  able  to  govern 
ourselves  intelligently  without  leading-strings.  Educa- 
tion contemplates  the  development  and  culture  of  the 
whole  man, — the  ripening  of  all  his  faculties,  mental, 
moral,  and  physical,  and  the  education  which  does  not 


MORAL  AND   INTELLECTUAL  SCIENCE.  97 

include  the  culture  of  the  moral  sense  and  its  subjection 
to  law,  is  lamentably  deficient. 

The.  other  studies  of  this  class  are  similarly  valuable. 
Our  knowledge  of  English  can  never  be  what  it  should 
be.  until  we  shall  have  learned  something  of  the  laws 
of  figurative  language,  which,  though  not  strictly  a  part 
of  intellectual  philosophy,  are  so  nearly  akin  to  it  as  to 
be  classed  with  it  in  most  courses  of  study.  There  is 
nothing  in  which  young  writers  and  speakers  are  more 
apt  to  blunder  than  in  the  use  of  figures  of  speech,  and 
it  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  a  reader  to  lose  the 
force  of  a  passage  or  to  misconceive  its  meaning  totally, 
from  a  want  of  just  this  training. 

The  lame  thing  is  true  of  the  other  parts  of  Rheto- 
ric. They  serve  to  perfect  the  student  in  the  use  of  his 
mother  tongue,  and  should  if  possible  be  added  to  the 
course  of  English  study  already  presciibed  in  a  former 
chapter. 

Political  Economy  deserves  a  large  share  of  the  atten- 
tion in  any  case,  and  with  us,  in  a  country  where  the 
people  govern,  or  more  properly,  perhaps,  where  they 
could  govern  if  they  would,  there  is  certainly  no  sub- 
ject of  speculative  study  so  universally  needed. 

We  all  complain  of  mob  rule,  of  the  tyranny  of  pai- 
ties,  of  the  reign  of  rings  and  cabals  and  cliques  ;  we 
all  lament  the  corruption  and  the  venality  of  our  poli- 
tics, and  yet  we  have  only  ourselves  to  blame  for  the 
lamentable  facts  of  which  we  complain.  We  take  no 
trouble  to  inform  ourselves  upon  the  principles  of  gov- 
ernment. We  attach  ourselves  to  parties.  We  call 
ourselves  Democrats  or  Republicans  as  our  prejudices 
may  dictate,  and  blindly  vote  for  the  men  nominated  by 
the  selfish  managers  of  these  parties,  taking   their  doc- 


i)8  HOW  TO   EDUCATE   YOURSELF. 

triues  of  governmental  policy  and  their  personal  hon« 
esty  upon  trust,  until  our  elections  have  come  to  be 
httle  more  than  a  scramble  for  spoils. 

Now  and  then  we  meet  men  who  dare  to  be  indepen- 
dent ol  party,  and  vote  intelhgently  for  the  weal  of  the 
state  ;  but  these  are  few  indeed,  and  the  great  majority 
even  of  otherwise  intelligent  men  vote  the  ticket 
of  their  party  without  inquiry  as  to  the  correctness  of 
its  principles,  the  wisdom  or  justice  of  its  policy,  or  even 
the  personal  rectitude  and  trustworthiness  of  the  men 
it  commends  to  their  suffrages. 

Every  political  platform  is  simply  an  insult  to  all  in- 
telligent men.  These  documents  profess  to  set  forth 
the  doctrines  and  policy  advocated  by  the  party  and 
represented  in  its  candidates.  In  point  of  fact  they  do 
nothing  of  the  kind.  They  are  simply  cleverly  executed 
pahmpsests  which  may  be  read  either  way ;  they  are  in- 
geniously contrived  traps  for  the  caftchiug  of  votes,  and 
when  once  their  purpose  has  been  served,  nobody  ever 
thinks  of  holding  the  officers,  who  have  been  elected 
upon  them,  to  an  honest  fulfillment  of  their  promises. 

These  are  notorious  facts,  and  in  them  lies,  without 
doubt,  the  greatest  danger  to  which  our  republican  in- 
stitutions are  exposed.  We  are,  as  a  people,  altogether 
too  ignorant  of  i^olitical  economy,  and  we  care  too 
little  about  it. 

If  we  would  govern  ourselves  well,  and  free  our- 
selves from  the  despotism  of  corrupt  parties,  we  must 
take  the  matter  really  and  truly  into  our  own  hands. 
We  must  inform  ourselves  upon  the  laws  of  political 
economy  and  be  prepared  to  vote  as  our  convictions  of 
justice  and  policy  may  dictate,  without  regard  to  the 
consistency  which  demands  a  pei'petual  adherence  to  a 


MOEAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  SCIENCE.  99 

party  name ;  and  when  any  considerable  portion  of  the 
American  people  shall  do  this,  even  though  it  be  but  a 
respectable  minority,  its  possession  of  the  "  balance  of 
power  "  will  compel  a  purification  of  parties,  and  force 
them  to  set  forth  cleai"ly,  distinctly  and  honestly  their 
real  principles  and  purposes,  and  to  carry  them  out 
faithfully  when  in  power. 

That  such  an  end  is  greatly  to  be  desired,  nobody 
will  deny,  and  it  can  only  bo  accomplished  by  individ- 
ual efforts.  But  if  it  shall  never  be  reached  even  ap- 
proximately there  is  still  no  reason  why  the  student 
should  neglect  to  make  himself  as  intelligently  capa- 
ble as  possible,  of  the  performance  of  his  duties  as  a 
citizen. 

THE   ORDER   AND    METHODS   OF   STUDY. 

Having  glanced  thus  briefly  at  the  value  and  import- 
ance of  studies  of  this  class,  we  come  now  to  the  ques- 
tion of  the  order  and  the  methods  of  their  pursuit. 

Except  that  Logic  underlies  most  of  them  to  a  great 
extent,  and  should  therefore  be  the  first  of  these  sub- 
jects taken  up,  there  is  no  very  necessary  order  of  se- 
quence to  be  preserved,  and  should  circumstances  make 
it  desirable  to  alter  the  order  I  shall  give,  there  will  be 
no  harm  done.  Otherwise  I  think  the  student's  pro- 
gress will  be  more  systematic  and  satisfactory  if  he  will 
take  them  up  somewhat  as  they  are  arranged  below. 

He  should  begin  with  Logic,  and  his  text-book  need 
not  be  a  very  large  or  a  very  costly  one.  A  comjjact, 
concise  treatise  on  the  subject  will  give  him  its  princi- 
ples fully,  and  enlighten  him  sufficiently  in  regard  to 
the  modes  of  their  application.  A  very  excellent  man- 
ual of  this  kind  was  issued  some  years  ago  by  ProfeS" 


100  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOUUSELF. 

sor  Coppee,  of  the  United  States  Military  Academy  at 
West  Point.  The  first  edition,  which  is  the  only  one 
I  have  seen,  was  full  of  typographical  errors,  many 
of  them  marring  the  sense  ;  but  this  defect  has  doubt- 
less been  cured  in  later  editions.  If  so,  I  know  of  no 
Detter  work  on  the  subject  for  the  use 'of  students  with- 
out masters.  Its  statements  of  principle  are  singularly 
clear  and  concise  ;  its  illustrations  are  very  apt,  and  its 
brevity  and  cheapness  are  greatly  in  its  favor. 

With  such  a  text-book,  of  which  there  are  several  of 
nearly  equal  value,  the  student  can  easily  master  the 
elements  of  Logic.  He  will  need  only  to  read  it  care- 
fully twice — the  first  time  slowly,  that  he  may  under- 
stand its  principles  in  detail,  the  second  time  more  ra- 
pidly, that  he  may  fix  the  system,  as  a  whole,  in  his 
mind. 

He  should  then  take  up  Rhetoric,  studying  it  very 
much  in  the  same  way,  but  adding  to  the  study  of  the 
book  such  exercises  as  will  readily  suggest  themselves 
for  the  fixing  of  its  rules  in  his  mind,  and  for  intelli- 
gent practice  in  its  teachings. 

Archbishop  Whateley's  and  Professor  Coppee's  treat- 
ises are  as  good,  perhaps,  as  any  others  as  elementary 
text-books,  and  their  study  should  be  followed  by  the 
peinisal  of  works  of  a  more  elaborate  kind  on  the  sub- 
ject, such,  for  instance,  as  Campbell's  Philosophy  of 
Rhetoric. 

After  completing  the  study  of  elementary  Rhetoric, 
however,  and  before  reading  more  exhaustive  works  on 
the  subject,  the  student  should  read  Lord's  Laws  of 
Figurative  Language,  or  some  similar  manual,  as  a  pro- 
per supplement  to  the  study  of  systematic  Rhetoric  in 
its  elementary  form. 


lEAL  AND   INTELLECTUAL  SCIENCE.  101 


Next  in  order  should  come  Ethics,  and  for  an  ele- 
mentary text-book,  I  know  of  nothing  better  than  Dr. 
Francis  Wayland's  Elements  of  Moral  Science,  which 
is  used  more  generally,  perhaps,  than  any  other,  in  the 
colleges  of  this  country.  It  needs  only  a  careful  read- 
ing, to  make  its  principles  clear  to  the  student's  mind, 
and  it  should,  if  possible,  be  followed  by  some  more 
elaborate  work  on  the  philosophy  of  morals,  such  for 
instance  as  Coleridge's  Aids  to  Reflection,  or  Victor 
Cousin's  The  Good,  Beautiful  and  True. 

Many  students  will  find  in  the  hst  already  given  as 
much  labor  as  they  can  well  devote  to  abstract  studies 
of  this  kind.  They  will  already  have  learned  some- 
thing of  metaphysics,  and  will  have  no  time  to  devote  to 
the  study  of  intellectual  philosophy,  pure  and  simple. 
These  will  need  to  pass  at  once  to  Political  Econ- 
omy. 

But  where  the  limitations  of  time  are  not  so  narrow, 
I  strongly  recommend  a  course  in  mental  philosophy, 
strictly  so  called,  and  it  should  properly  follow  the 
studies  we  have  just  considered. 

The  student  should  read  Lord  Bacon's  Novum  Or- 
ganum,  Locke  on  the  Understanding,  and  Brown's 
Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind,  as  text-books,  to 
which,  if  he  wishes  to  extend  his  philosophical  reading, 
he  may  add,  with  advantage,  the  works  of  Herbert 
Spencer,  Sir  William  Hamilton,  Dr.  McCosh,  President 
Noah  Porter,  John  Stuart  Mill,  and  others,  as  occasion 
may  serve. 

The  line  between  systematic,  text-book  study,  and 
general  reading  is  here  so  narrow  that  I  add  the  fore- 
going catalogue  of  books  in  this  place,  though  most  of 


102  HOW   TO   EDUCATE   YOURSELF. 

them  belong  rather  to  tho  chapter  on  General  Read«- 
ing. 

We  come  next  to  Political  Economy  ;  and  here  again, 
it  is  very  difficult  to  draw  the  line  between  study,  in  the 
schoolroom  sense  of  the  term,  and  general  reading.  I 
content  myself,  therefore,  with  remarking  that  the  stu- 
dent needs  first  to  acquaint  himself  with  the  principles 
of  political  economy  from  some  good  text-book — Dr. 
Wayland's  Elements  is  the  best  one  for  the  purpose,  I 
tliink — and  then  to  read  as  largely  on  the  subject  as  he 
can,  taking  care  to  examine  both  sides  of  the  questiona 
on  which  our  political  philosophers  differ  widely.  The 
chief  of  these  is  Free  Trade  vs.  Protection,  and  on 
such  a  question  the  student  should  at  least  hear  what 
both  the  schools  have  to  say.  If  he  has  preconceived 
notions  on  the  subject,  as  most  of  us  have,  there  is  the 
greater  necessity  for  an  examination  of  the  arguments 
of  the  writers  with  whose  conclusions  he  is  at  issue. 
For  a  brief  but  pretty  complete  course  of  reading  on 
the  subject  I  would  recommend 

Adam  Smith's  "  Wealth  of  Nations  ;" 

John  Stuart  Mill's  "  Principles  of  Political  Economy;" 

Mill's  "  System  of  Political  Economy  ;" 

Horace  Greeley's  "  Science  of  Political  Economy,"  and 

H.  C.  Carey's  "  Political  Economy." 

And  these  may  be  read  in  any  order  of  sequence, 
without  material  change  of  result. 

I  name  these  for  the  benefit  of  students  who  desire 
merely  to  make  themselves  familiar  with  the  general 
features  of  the  subject.  Those  who  wish  to  study  it 
thoroughly  as  a  specialty,  will  of  course  read  Bentham, 
De  Quincey,  Malthus,  Colton,  M'Culloch,and  a  score  of 
other  authors. 


Los  Ariffeles 
MORAL  AND   INTELLECTUAL  SCIENCE.  103 

A  similar  enlargement  of  the  course  in  other  direc- 
tions— logical,  ethical  or  otherwise — will  suggest  itself 
to  students  "who  wish  to  make  any  of  these  a  subject  of 
special  study,  and  for  information  as  to  the  various 
books  extant  of  these  and  other  kinds,  reference  may 
be  had  to  The  Best  Reading,  a  book  published  by 
Messrs.  G.P.  Putnam  &  ISonS;,  in  which  the  principal 
works  on  every  subject  are  given  in  the  alphabetical  or- 
der of  their  authors'  names,  under  alphabetically  ar- 
ranged titles  as  to  subject,  class,  etc.,  and  their  compar- 
ative standing  in  literature  indicated  as  nearly  as  prac- 
ticable. The  book  may  be  had  for  a  trifle,  and  cannot 
fail  to  be  of  very  great  service  to  any  person  who  in- 
tends to  read  at  all  extensively,  or  to  collect  even  the 
smallest  library. 

Even  where  no  such  purpose  exists,  such  classified 
dictionarieg  of  books  are  valuable  as  reading  matter,  sm 
will  be  seen  in  our  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 


GENEItAL   READING. 


SOME   "WORDS    OF   WAKNING. 


The  student  who  shall  follow  at  all  adequately  the 
course  of  study  sketched  in  the  preceding  chapters, 
wDl,  at  its  conclusion,  have  completed  a  very  fair  curri- 
culunj,  and  he  will  be  master  of  most  of  the  branches 
included  in  an  ordinary  collegiate  education. 

But  by  all  means  let  him  not  make  the  mistake,  too 
often  fatal  even  to  collegians,  of  supposing  that  his  ed- 
ucation is  in  any  sense  complete,  and  that  he  has 
enough  either  of  the  information  or  of  the  culture 
which  constitute  an  education.  In  point  of  fact  he  has 
only  learned  how  to  educate  himself  and  mastered  the 
rudiments  of  his  life  studies.  He  has  yet  to  read  ex- 
tensively, and  to  think, — to  study  general  literature  and 
to  study  men  and  things  ;  he  has  yet  to  become  com- 
plete master  of  himself,— to  learn  much  in  the  school 
of  self-criticism,  to  apply  what  he  has  learned  to  the 
practical  affairs  of  life,  and  to  make  it  his  guide  to  the 
acquisition  of  larger  measures  of  information  and  cul- 
ture,— he  has  aU  this  to  do  if  he  would  reap  the  full 
rewards  of  his  labor.     And  should  he  continue  his  work 


GENERAL  READING.  105 

for  a  lifetime,  there  will  still  be  more  unlearned  than 
learned,  and  the  culture  will  still  be  imperfect. 

The  point  I  would  here  enforce  is  simply  this,  that 
the  course  of  study  marked  out  for  the  student  here 
and  in  the  colleges,  constitutes  nothing  more  than  an 
introduction  to  the  real  work  of  securing  ripe  scholar- 
ship and  thorough  culture. 

I  would  have  the  student  learn  that  there  is  more  of 
information  and  infinitely  more  of  culture  to  be  gained 
in  the  study  of  general  literatiii-e  and  in  actual  intellec- 
tual work,  than  in  the  most  thorough  of  collegiate  train- 
ings. 

As  a  preparation  for  profitable  reading  and  success- 
ful work,  regular  systematic  study  cannot  be  too  highly 
esteemed,  but  it  should  never  for  a  moment  be 
mistaken  for  the  end  to  which  it  is  only  the  means. 

If,  therefore,  the  student's  time  is  so  Hmited  that  his 
pursuit  of  systematic  study  will  seriously  abridge  his 
after  reading  and  other  intellectual  work,  I  strongly 
urge  him  to  forego  the  former  in  large  measure  for  the 
sake  of  the  latter  ;  to  content  himself  with  a  thorough 
mastery  of  the  common  school  course  I  have  recom- 
mended, and  the  merest  outline  of  the  one  following  it, 
that  he  may  have  time  for  the  higher  and  better  edu- 
cation of  the  library. 

Extensive  general  reading  may  make  cultivated,  well- 
informed,  well-balanced  men  without  much  knowledge 
of  the  text-books  ;  but  no  amount  of  text-book  study, 
■without  extensive  reading,  ever  yet  brought  about  such 
a  result. 

I  argue  now,  not  against  systematic  study,  but  in  favor 
of  general  reading.  The  study  of  text-books  is  an  ad- 
mirable beginning  in  the  work  of  education,  but  it  is 


106  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

not  the  whole  of  that  work.  It  is  a  means  and  not  an 
end.  It  is  very  valuable,  but  not  absolutely  necessary 
in  all  cases,  while  a  general  acquaintance  with  literature, 
a  large  reading  of  books,  is  necessary  always  to  anything 
like  thorough  culture,  and  may,  by  itself,  accomplish  the 
l-esult. 

Now,  if  the  reader  be  indolent  and  inclined  to  self- 
indulgence,  he  will  almost  certainly  construe  these  re- 
marks into  an  easy  excuse  for  his  neglect  of  text- 
books, and  I  cannot  help  it.  He  may  rest  assured,  how- 
ever that  indolent  people  are  not  the  ones  who  manage 
to  make  reasonably  well-educated  men  of  themselves 
without  much  acquaintance  with  text-books,  and  that  in 
any  event  his  readiness  to  abandon  the  more  laborious 
preliminary  task  argues  badly  for  his  success  in  the 
after  work. 

The  training  of  the  regular  course  is  the  best  possible 
preparation  for  the  self-culture  that  comes  after  it,  and 
the  young  man  who  deliberately  omits  this  preparation 
gives  small  promise  of  success  without  it. 

The  purpose  of  this  volume  is  to  tell  the  student 
what  constitutes  education,  and  how  to  secure  as  com- 
plete a  one  as  his  circumstances  will  permit.  To 
this  end  I  must  show  him  the  comparative  impor- 
tance of  the  several  parts  of  his  work,  so  that  he  may 
select  judiciously  where  he  must  select  so  me  parts  of 
the  whole  to  the  exclusion  of  others.  My  advice  to 
every  reader  is, — Make  your  education  as  thorough,  as 
wide,  as  complete  and  as  well  balanced  as  possible,  but 
if  you  must  omit  some  things  belonging  to  the  regular 
scheme,  get  all  the  light  you  can  in  regard  to  their  com- 
parative values,  and  then  select,  for  omission,  those 
which  are  the  least  necessary,  remembering  all  the  time 


GENERAL  EEADINQ.  107 

that  every  such  omission  is  a  loss  which  you  cannot 
afford  to  sustain,  if  you  can  possibly  help  it.  And  thia 
is  precisely  the  extent  of  my  meaning  when  I  say  that, 
as  between  text-book  study  and  general  reading,  the 
preference  should  be  given  to  general  reading. 

AN    EXCEPTION. 

To  all  this,  however,  there  is  one  exception  which 
must  be  made.  In  cases  where  for  any  good  reason  the 
student's  purpose  is  the  mastery  of  a  specialty,  he 
must  of  course  make  the  text-books  bearing  on  that 
specialty  the  basis  of  all  his  work,  and  must  master 
them  absolutely.  But  even  this  is  an  exception  only  in 
appearance,  for  students  of  this  class,  after  they  shall 
have  mastered  the  text-books  in  their  particular  line, 
if  their  time  is  limited,  will  do  better  to  pass  at  once 
to  more  general  reading  on  the  subject  they  have  in 
hand,  than  to  devote  themselves  to  the  study  of  text- 
books foreign  to  their  purpose, 

WHAT   TO    KEAD. 

There  is  no  question  more  frequently  asked  than 
"  What  shaU  I  read  ?"  Certainly  there  is  no  question 
more  difficult  to  answer. 

No  man  ever  yet  read  all  that  he  might  have  read 
with  profit,  and  no  reading  man  ever  read  half  that  he 
would  have  liked  to  read.  The  best  that  any  of  us  can 
do  in  the  matter  is  to  do  our  best.  That  is  to  say,  we 
can  only  read  a  part  of  what  we  need  and  would  like 
to  read,  governing  our  selections  in  this,  as  in  every 
thing  else,  by  the  circumstances  in  which  we  are 
placed. 

An  intelligent  conception  of  the  object  we  have  in 


108  HOW  TO  EDUCATE   lODESELF. 

view,  however,  nnd  a  little  attentiou  to  the  peculiar  ser- 
vice which  each  particular  class  of  literature  is  capable 
of  rendering  us,  will  greatly  aid  us  in  determining  in 
a  general  v/ay  what  we  will  read,  and  for  the  rest  we 
must  trust  largely  to  accident  and  impulse. 

If  a  man  read  only  for  amusement,  he  is  vei-y  apt  to 
read  the  most  entertaining  books  within  his  reach,  but 
in  such  cases  accident  has  a  large  share  in  determining 
his  selection.  I  have  even  known  faii'ly  intelligent  men, 
when  shut  up  under  stress  of  weather  at  a  country  inn, 
where  they  could  get  nothing  else,  to  read  the  dreary 
drivelliugs  in  sentimental  annuals,  rather  than  listen  to 
the  drearier  drivellings  of  a  tiresome  landlord. 

In  these  and  similar  cases,  accident  is  the  evident 
determiner  of  the  choice.  But  even  where  the  stress  of 
circumstance  is  not  so  sore,  at  least  half  our  reading  is 
in  part  accidental,  or  the  result  of  impulse.  And,  after 
all,  if  the  taste  be  reasonably  well  cultivated,  and  there  is 
no  special  end  in  view,  it  is  a  pretty  good  plan  to  follow 
the  advice  of  an  old  reader,  who,  when  requested  by  a 
youngster  to  mark  out  a  liberal  course  of  reading  for 
him,  wrote  in  reply,  "  Read  just  what  you  wish  to  read, — 
that  is  the  most  liberal  course  I  can  suggest." 

Even  this,  however,  is  a  course  of  reading  impossible 
to  follow  fully,  for  who  that  reads  at  all  ever  succeeded 
in  reading  half  that  he  wished  ? 

But  the  taste  is  not  always  well  cultivated,  and  so  is 
often  an  unsafe  guide. 

Again,  men  do  not  all  read  merely  for  amusement,  and 
those  who  care  to  make  use  of  this  manual  are  only 
those  whose  reading  is  for  a  definite  purpose  of  some 
sort,  general  or  particular.  Now  the  differences  of  i)ur- 
pose  on  the  part  of  different  people  make  all  the  differ- 


GENERAL  KEADma.  109 

ence  in  the  world  in  the  answers  that  should  be  given 
to  the  question  we  are  considering. 

The  first  thing  to  be  determined,  therefore,  is  the 
purpose  for  which  you  intend  to  read,  and  the  purposes 
of  different  people  in  this  regard  are  as  various  as  can 
well  be  imagined. 

I  remember  hearing  a  young  man  ask  an  old  reader 
what  he  should  read,  when  a  conversation  something 
hke  this  ensued: 

Old  Reader. — What  do  you  want  to  read  for  ? 

Young  Man. — That  is  rather  a  difficult  question  to 
answer. 

Old  Reader. — Very  well.  But  you  must  answer  it  be- 
fore I  can  possibly  advise  you  what  to  read.  If  you 
wish  to  become  a  physician,  I  would  strongly  advise  you 
to  read  standard  medical  works  in^  preference  to  any 
others.  If  you  aspire  to  the  law,  you  might  begin  with 
Blackstone  as  an  introductory  work,  following  it  up 
Kent's  Commentaries  and 

Young  Man. — I  don't  want  anything  of  that  sort  ;  I 
only  want  to  inform  myself  generally. 

Old  Reader. — Very  well.  But  I  doubt  that.  Do  you 
mean  that  you  really  wish  to  become  a  well-informed 
man,  or  do  you  merely  wish  to  appear  so — to  be  able  to 
join  in  conversations  on  a  great  variety  of  subjects,  and 
make  a  fair  showing  in  society  ? 

The  young  man  admitted  that  this  last  was  about  his 
idea,  though  he  seemed  to  have  just  discovered  the 
fact. 

"Very  well,  I  say  again,"  said  the  old  reader,  "your 
object  is  a  very  common  one,  and  is  easily  accom- 
phshed.  You  have  only  to  read  Bui-ton's  Anatomy  of 
Melancholy.     If  you  can  stand  a  Uttle  more,  it  would  be 


110  HOW  TO  EDUCATE   YOURSELF. 

well  enough  to  add  Shakspeare  to  the  hst.  The  Bible 
you  will  read,  of  course." 

The  old  reader  was  right.  The  purpose  the  young 
man  had  in  view  is  a  very  common  one,  and  the  short- 
est possible  road  to  its  accomplishment  is  the  one  his 
adviser  pointed  out. 

The  incident  serves  also  to  show  how  essential  it  is 
to  an  intelligent  selection  of  reading-matter  that  the 
prospective  reader  shall  know  precisely  what  are  his 
objects  in  reading.  In  this,  as  in  everything  else,  he 
should  ascertain  what  he  wants  before  he  sets  about 
the  task  of  selecting  it. 

And  yet  this  is  rarely  done.  People  who  want  to 
read  are  ver}'  apt  either  to  trust  blindly  to  accident,  or 
to  ask  somebody  to  mark  out  a  course  for  them  to  fol- 
low, or  to  adopt  from  some  autobiography  or  other  the 
course  its  author  wishes  that  he  had  followed. 

COURSES   OF   READING. 

As  a  rule,  set  courses  of  reading  are  not  advisable. 
In  the  first  place,  the  cases  in  which  they  are  faithfully 
followed  are  very  few  indeed,  and  where  they  are  begun 
and  after  a  while  abandoned,  a  serious  injury  is  done  to 
to  the  reader,  by  his  failure  to  carry  out  a  purpose  de- 
liberately formed. 

'  But  aside  from  this,  it  is  impossible  for  any  person  to 
decide,  in  advance  of  the  reading,  just  what  set  of  books 
will  best  accomplish  his  purpose.  Suppose,  for  the 
sake  of  example,  that  the  student  wishes  to  make  him- 
self acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  times  of  the  Stu- 
arts. At  the  outset  his  course  seems  plain  enough. 
There  are  half  a  dozen  histories  to  be  read,  and  a  few 
books  of  the  period  to  be  looked  over.     But  before  he 


GENERAL  READING.  Ill 

shall  have  fairly  started  in  his  first  history  he  will  find 
that  he  needs  to  know  something  of  the  history  oi  Eng- 
land previous  to  the  accession  of  James  the  First.  Then 
he  wiU  find  that  a  clear  comprehension  of  this  much  of 
English  history  is  only  possible  to  people  vyho  know,  in 
a  general  way,  the  history  of  Euroije  during  the  middle 
ages.  He  will  want  also  to  know  the  causes  of  the  Re- 
formation, and  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  English  revolt 
fi'om  Catholicism.  To  this  end  he  must  read  something 
of  church  history  and  theological  controversy.  Many 
such  necessities  will  arise,  and  it  is  hardly  probable  that 
the  student  can  have  marked  out  in  the  beginning  just 
the  books  he  now  finds  it  necessary  to  read.  He  must 
either  abandon  the  coui'se  originally  determined  upon 
and  adopt  a  very  different  one,  or  else  he  must  go  on 
with  the  consciousness  that  he  is  allowing  his  pre- 
conceived rule  of  action  to  thwart  the  purpose  it  was 
designed  to  furthei*. 

All  this  is  still  more  applicable,  of  course,  to  those 
cases  in  which  the  purpose  is  wider  and  more  compre- 
hensive than  the  one  supposed  above.  It  is  not  possi- 
ble that  the  student,  before  he  has  begun  his  course  of 
reading,  can  be  at  aU,  competent  to  decide  of  what  that 
course  shall  consist. 

And  the  case  is  not  changed  materially  by  the  calling 
in  of  a  friend  to  act  as  adviser,  for  the  best  that  he  can 
do  practically  is  to  mark  out  two  or  three  or  four 
courses,  between  which  the  student  must  himself 
choose,  and  this  is  precisely  what  he  is  incompetent  to 
do  wisely. 

The  better  plan,  and  indeed  the  only  plan  at  all 
practicable,  is  to  determine  clearly  your  purpose  in 
reading,  and  then  to  choose  your  books  as  you  go  on, 


J 12  now  TO   EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

with  strict  reference  to  that  purpose.  Tou  will  find 
at  every  step  abundant  suggestions  as  to  the  next  books 
to  be  taken  up,  and  the  only  embarrassment  with 
which  you  will  meet  will  be  that  arising  from  the  very 
multiplicity  of  desirable  text-books. 

I  once  knew  a  literary  man  who  wanted  to  write  an 
article  on  cats,  and  knowing  very  little  about  the  sub- 
ject he  set  himself  to  woi'k  reading  up.  He  told  me 
that  in  the  outset  he  expected  to  find  nothing 
about  the  animals  in  question,  outside  of  the  encyclo- 
pedias and  natural  histories.  His  first  examination  of 
one  of  these  suggested  four  books  to  be  consulted. 
These  made  frequent  reference  to  others,  and  becoming 
interested  in  his  subject  he  bought,  before  he  knew  it, 
a  whole  shelf  full  of  cat  literature,  and  then,  as  a  matter 
of  economy,  began  to  frequent  the  great  public  libraries 
in  search  of  the  hundreds  of  other  books  from  each  of 
which  something  was  to  be  learned  about  cats.  He 
quitted  the  subject  at  last,  but  felt  in  quitting  that  he 
had  not  exhausted  it. 

Precisely  the  same  thing  may  be  done  in  any  direc- 
tion, and-  the  only  difficulty  often  is  to  know  when  to 
quit  the  pursuit  of  a  topic  for  something  else,  and  here 
again  the  predetermined  purpose  will  be  the  best 
guide. 

SOME   GOOD   RULES. 

Believing  as  I  do  that  prearranged  courses  of  reading 
are  not  advisable,  I  shall  of  course  mark  out  none,  and 
holding  that  the  reader  should  in  every  case  decide  for 
himself  what  he  will  read,  I  shall  make  no  attempt  to 
decide  for  him.  But  a  few  suggestions  may  enable  him 
to  see  his  own  way  more  clearly. 


GENEBAL  BEADING.  113 


READING   UP. 

Of  course,  when  there  is  a  particular  subject  on  which 
the  student  wishes  to  inform  himself,  his  only  course  is 
to  "  read  up  "  on  it,  as  the  hack  writers  sa}',  and  the 
extent  to  which  he  should  do  this  will  be  measured  in 
each  case  by  the  extent  of  the  need  suggesting  it.  If  he 
desires  to  make  himself  thorough  master  of  a  specialty, 
in  all  its  bearings,  he  must  read  carefully  everything  he 
can  find  having  reference  to  it.  If  he  merely  wishes  to 
acquaint  himself  generally  with  the  subject,  a  less  elabo- 
rate reading  will  suffice. 

There  are  many  people  who  do  all  their  reading  in 
this  way,  and  in  the  end  they  become  pretty  well  in- 
formed on  most  subjects,  but  I  doubt  the  wisdom  of 
such  a  course  where  there  are  no  circumstances  to  make 
it  necessary.  It  is  not  productive  of  as  much  culture  as 
other  systems  are,  and  people  who  practice  it  are  very 
apt  to  read  nothing  at  all  at  times  when  they  have  no 
special  subject  in  hot  chase.  And  yet  the  plan  has  the 
sanction  of  some  great  names.  Among  others  Richard 
Brinsley  Sheridan  and  Oliver  Goldsmith  are  notable 
examples.  It  is  related  of  the  former  that  on  one  oc- 
casion, when  a  great  financial  question  was  under  con- 
sideration in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  announced 
that  he  intended  to  speak  upon  it.  His  friends  re- 
ceived the  announcement  witli  wondering  smiles,  as 
Sheridan  was  proverbial  for  his  utter  ignorance  of 
figures.  He  had  four  days,  however,  in  which  to  "  read 
up,"  and  at  the  end  of  that  time  he  delivered  one  of  the 
most  masterly  arithmetical  arguments  ever  heard  in  the 
House. 

His  success  showed  what  he  could  do  iii  the  way  oi 


Ill  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

"  cramming  ;"  but  with  all  bis  brilliancy,  it  can  bardlj 
be  said  that  Sheridan  was  a  Yerj  good  model  for  any- 
body's following. 

BEADING  TO  CURE  DEFECTS. 

There  is  one  respect,  however,  in  which  it  is  very  de- 
sirable that  all  our  reading  should  be  to  some  extent  of 
this  character.  As  in  text-book  study,  so  also  in  gene- 
ral reading,  an  effort  should  be  made  to  supply  defects 
both  of  information  and  of  culture.  The  weak  places 
need,  and  should  have  a  constant  strengthening.  It  is 
in  these  points  that  we  fail,  and  it  is  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance that  our  intellectual  armor  be  made  as  com- 
plete and  perfect  as  possible. 

To  this  end  the  student  must  carefully  study  himself 
as  his  master  would  study  him,  recognizing  every  fault 
and  every  defect,  in  order  that  he  may  know  clearly 
what  he  has  to  supply. 

So  far  as  the  mere  acquisition  of  information  is  con- 
cerned, this  task  is  an  easy  one,  but  in  the  matter  of 
culture  it  is  more  difficult,  though  even  here  we  may 
know  ourselves  reasonably  well  if  we  choose  to  make 
the  effort  fairly  and  with  as  httle  prejudice  as  possible. 
Indeed  we  must  do  it,  if  we  would  make  anything  hke 
well-balanced  men  and  women  of  ourselves. 

Having  discovered  important  defects  in  his  cultui'e 
or  his  stock  of  information,  the  student  should  give 
himself  at  once  to  the  work  of  curing  them  by  reading 
such  books  as  are  best  adapted  to  the  accomphshmeat 
of  that  end. 

KEADING   TO   STRENGTHEN    STRONG   POINTS. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  student  recognizes  in  hiro 


GENERAL  READING.  115 

self  any  point  of  peculiar  strength — anything  in  which 
he  is  hkely,  from  peculiar  constitution  or  taste,  to 
achieve  an  especial  success,  it  will  always  be  best  for 
him  to  subordinate  everything  else  to  the  cultivation  of 
the  one  faculty  which  constitutes  his  strength. 

KEADINa   BOTH    SIDES. 

In  either  case,  whether  the  student  reads  for  the  full 
rounding  of  his  education  or  for  its  perfection  in  a  sin- 
gle direction,  there  is  nothing  more  important  than  that 
he  shall  read  both  sides  of  every  question  he  shall  take 
up.  If  he  read  Hume's  History  of  England,  for  instance, 
that  reading  will  make  Lingard  almost  a  necessity  to 
him. 

That  this  is  true  of  all  speculative  and  historical  lite- 
rature is  apparent,  but  the  principle  has  a  wider  appli- 
cation than  this.  Even  in  matters  of  mere  taste  it  is 
well  to  cultivate  catholicity,  and  so  it  is  a  good  plan  to 
select  poetry  and  other  imaginative  literature  with  re- 
ference to  the  cultivation  of  a  wide  and  generous  appre- 
ciativeness  that  shall  embrace  something  more  than  a 
single  school  of  poets  or  novelists.  Mr.  Thackeray  re- 
joiced in  his  daughter's  persistent  and  perpetual  read- 
ing of  Dickens,  but  it  would  have  been  greatly  better 
for  her  had  she  turned  sometimes  from  Nicholas  Nic- 
kleby  to  Vanity  Fair,  even  if  she  had  made  no  more 
radical  change  of  intellectual  diet,  for  the  prevention  of 
intellectual  dyspepsia. 

HOW    MUCH    OF    A    BOOK   TO    KEAD. 

Inasmuch  as  we  cannot  possibly  read  half  or  even  a 
tenth  of  the  books  we  would  like  to  read,  it  is  very  im- 
portant that  we  waste  no  time  reading  the  less  desira- 
ble portions  of  the  books  we  do  take  up. 


116  HOW  TO  EDUCATE   YOURSELF. 

It  is  a  rule  often  laid  down  for  readers  that  they 
shonld  never  begin  a  book  without  going  entirely 
through  it.  Now  if  every  book  contained  only  cream, 
and  if  there  were  only  a  very  few  books  in  the  world 
worth  reading,  this  would  be  excellent  advice.  But  un- 
fortunately there  is  a  good  deal  of  very  thin  skim-milk 
in  many  books  that  have  some  cream  in  them,  and  there 
are  many  more  valuable  books  than  any  one  can  read. 

When  our  purpose  with  a  book  has  been  served — 
when  we  have  read  those  parts  of  it  that  we  want,  it  is 
simply  a  waste  of  precious  time  to  go  on  reading  the 
parts  that  we  do  not  particularly  want,  even  though 
they  be  good  in  themselves,  when  thei'e  are  so  many 
other  books  that  we  greatly  need  to  read. 

Suppose,  for  instance,  that  you  are  studying  the  sub- 
ject of  popular  education.  In  the  middle  of  Mr.  Her- 
bert Spencer's  Social  Statics  there  is  a  chapter  bear- 
ing upon  the  subject  which  you  must  certainly  read. 
When  you  shall  have  read  that,  it  would  be  simply  ab- 
surd for  you  to  go  on  and  read  the  remainder  of  the 
book,  although  every  chapter  of  it  is  valuable.  You 
are  reading  for  a  particular  purpose,  and  you  have 
many  books  to  read  before  that  purpose  will  be  accom- 
plished. The  one  chapter  is  all  that  this  book  has  to 
offer  you  in  this  particular  direction,  and  you  certainly 
cannot  afford  to  spend  time  that  should  be  given  to 
other  works  on  the  subject,  in  reading  the  excellent 
chapters  of  Social  Statics  which  do  not  bear  upon  it. 

Dr.  Johnson's  advice  was  much  sounder.  His  maxim 
was,  "  When  you  open  a  book,  and  become  interested  in 
the  middle  of  it,  never  stop  to  begin  at  the  beginning." 
The  rule  is  a  very  good  one  in  its  letter,  and  a  much 
better  one  in  its  spirit,  which  clearly  is  that  we  should 


GENERAL  READING.  117 

take  pains  to  get  at  what  we  want  in  every  book,  with 
as  httle  loss  of  time  as  possible.  Himself  an  omnivo« 
rous  reader,  he  knew  thoroughly  well  the  art  of  getting 
promptly  at  the  kernels  of  all  his  books. 

READING   ABOUT   BOOKS. 

To  be  at  aU  well-informed,  one  must  know  a  good 
deal  about  books  which  he  cannot  possibly  find  time  to 
read.  He  must  know  the  authorship,  the  character,  and 
history  generally  of  vastly  more  books  than  he  could 
possibly  read  in  half  a  dozen  lifetimes.  He  must  know 
whence  they  came,  what  peculiar  circumstances  are 
connected  with  them,  who  their  ^authors  are,  to  what 
discussions  they  have  given  rise,  what  their  effect  upon 
the  world  has  been,  and  what  is  their  literary  level.  Not 
that  all  these  things  can  be  remembered  in  evei-y  case, 
or  that  they  should  be  even  deliberately  studied  in  de- 
tail. But  one's  reading  should  at  least  have  some  refer- 
ence to  this,  and  he  should  seek  to  become  thus  ac- 
quainted with  literature  as  a  whole. 

To  this  end  even  publishers'  catalogues  are  not  with- 
out value,  particularly  when  they  are  at  all  full  in  their 
descriptions.  But  much  better  than  these  are  well  di- 
gested books  about  books,  such  as  the  one  already  re- 
ferred to.*  Such  a  volume  may  be  had  for  a  trifle,  and 
in  addition  to  its  value  for  reference,  it  has  the  ad- 
ditional merit  of  furnishing  its  reader  a  comprehensive 
view  of  literature  as  it  is,  and  a  well  digested  in- 
dex to  the  subject  he  has  in  hand.  The  reader  who 
shall  give  a  day  or  two  to  such  a  volume  will  learn  what 
every  person  must  know  more  or  less  thoroughly  to  be 

*  The  Best  Beading' 


118  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

well  informed — namely,  what  books  each  author  haa 
given  to  the  world  ;  who  is  the  author  of  each  of  the 
books  we  hear  spoken  of  in  convei-sation  ;  to  what  class 
of  literature  each  belongs  ;  of  wliat  it  treats,  and  what 
is  the  position  assigned  to  it  in  literature  by  the  best  of 
our  critics. 

He  will  learn,  in  short,  the  outside  of  literature, — he 
will  have  before  him  an  excellent  map  of  the  literai-y 
world,  and  will  gain  from  it  a  valuable  knowledge  of 
those  parts  of  it  over  which  he  cannot  travel  in 
person. 

But  it  is  not  enough  that  he  shall  know  this  much  of 
the  books  which  he  cannot  hope  to  read.  There  are 
very  many  of  the  books  that  we  have  no  time  to  read, 
about  which  we  need  to  know  something  more  than 
their  titles  and  similar  matters,  and  this  is  most  readily 
accomplished  by  the  reading  of  intelligent  criticism. 

Of  some  books  an  elaborate  review  is  worth  reading, 
but  these,  for  the  most  part,  are  books  which  must 
themselves  be  read  by  every  person  who  makes  any 
effort  to  keep  up  with  current  literature,  and  so  the  briefer 
notices  given  in  our  monthly  magazines  of  the  better 
class,  and  even  those  which  we  find  in  the  great  metro- 
politan dailies,  are  of  very  great  value  as  furnishing  the 
information  we  need  about  the  books  which  we  have  no 
time  to  read,  but  concerning  which  every  intelligent 
man  needs  to  know  something. 

DANGEBOUS   BEADING. 

Almost  any  kind  of  reading  matter,  if  read  to  the 
exclusion  of  evei*ything  else,  becomes  dangerous.  It  ia 
never  weU  to  cultivate  a  one-sided  mental  habit.  An 
intellectual  diet,  consisting  only  of  poetry,  even  though 


GENERAL  READING.  119 

the  poetry  be  always  of  the  best,  is  quite  as  bad  as  a 
physical  feeding  on  nothing  but  pastry.  Dyspepsia,  in 
physical  form,  is  not  worse  than  its  intellectual  counter- 
part. 

This  particular  danger  is  all  the  greater  for  the  reason 
that  people  whose  tastes  lead  them  to  confine  their  read- 
ing largely  to  a  single  kind  of  literature,  are  always 
people  whose  minds  need  balancing  in  precisely  the 
opposite  direction.  A  taste  so  strong  for  poetry,  or 
other  ideal  literature,  that  its  possessor  cares  for  noth- 
ing else,  indicates  a  pressing  necessity  for  the  cultivation 
of  the  more  practical  faculties.  And  so  it  is  with  every 
other  such  leaning. 

The  student  may  very  properly  entertain  preferences 
of  this  kind,  and  he  is  safe  enough  in  allowing  them  to 
lead  him  to  a  reasonable  extent,  but  he  should  at  all 
events  take  pains  to  preserve  the  balance  which  he  has 
cultivated,  and  whenever  he  finds  his  taste  leading  him 
into  excess  in  one  direction,  it  is  his  business  at  ouce  to 
restrain  and  correct  it  by  studies  of  an  opposite  cha- 
racter. 

I  have  already  advised  the  cultivation  and  develop- 
ment of  sti'ong  points  in  every  case,  but  strong  points  be- 
come points  of  weakness  if  they  are  allowed  to  control 
the  whole  man. 

A  little  novel-reading  may  be  absolutely  necessary  to 
the  intellectual  equilibrium  of  a  metaphysical  or  math- 
ematical enthusiast,  while  there  are  men  and  women  in 
whom  the  reading  of  fiction  has  destroyed  all  that  there 
ever  was  in  them  of  intellectual  vigor,  simply  because 
their  tendencies  and  tastes  were  all  in  one  direction, 
EUid  no  care  was  taken  to  turn  them  in  any  other. 

T  cannot  too  strongly  impress  upon  the  student  the 


120  HOW   TO   EDUCATE   YOURSELF. 

necessity  of  guarding  himself  against  all  such  clangers. 
He  should  know  himself  as  thoroughly  as  possible,  that 
he  may  know  and  supply  his  own  intellectual  wants  ; 
but  above  all,  he  should  see  to  it  that  his  reading  is  va- 
ried in  its  character,  and  that  his  changes  of  intellect- 
ual food  are  not  left  to  caprice  or  chance.  He  should 
read  some  novels,  certainly  ;  a  good  deal  of  poetry, 
without  doubt  ;  some  speculative  literature  ;  a  good 
deal  of  biography,  and  more  of  history.  If  any  one 
class  of  books  please  him  above  the  rest,  he  will  cer- 
tainly read  enough  of  that,  but  he  should  take  good 
care  that  its  precise  opposite  receives  a  full  share  of  at- 
tention. 

There  is  one  other  danger  which  comes  to  every 
reader.  We  must  all  read  the  newspapers,  of  course; 
liut  to  read  even  one  large  paper  entirely  through  every 
day  requires  a  considerable  expenditure  of  time.  Now 
the  truth  is,  that  unless  one  reads  newspapers  in  the 
way  of  business  there  is  very  little  in  one  that  any  one 
person  needs  to  read.  There  may  be  nothing  in  the 
paper  that  should  be  omitted  from  it — nothing  which 
will  not  meet  the  wants  of  some  reader  ;  but  at  the 
same  time  the  parts  that  any  single  individual  needs 
more  than  he  needs  the  time  it  would  take  to  read 
them,  are  very  few  and  very  small.  Every  reader 
should  learn  to  find  these  readily,  a?id  he  should  read 
nothing  else  in  the  paper. 

The  head-lines  and  the  tj'pographical  pecuharities  of 
the  several  parts  will  enable  an  attentive  reader  to  see 
at  a  glance  what  he  wants  and  can  afford  to  read  ;  but 
curiosity  or  carelessness  leads  nearly  all  of  us  to  read 
vastly  more  of  oiu*  newspapers  than  this,  to  the  great 
wasting  of  very  valuable  time.     A  httle  care  will  ena- 


GENEEAL  KEADINa.  121 

ble  the  student  to  avoid  this,  and  avoid  it  he  must,  if  he 
would  economize  his  time  properly. 

In  the  reading  of  magazines  and  literary  papers  there 
is  a  similar  danger,  though  it  exists  in  much  smaller  de- 
gree, inasmuch  as  these  are  more  strictly  literary  in 
their  chai*acter,  and  have  therefore  no  occasion  to  sup- 
ply matter  of  no  use  to  the  majority  of  readers. 

A   SCHEDULE   OF   READING-MATTER.  -^ 

I  have  already  said  that  set  courses  of  reading  are 
usually  valueless,  and  that  it  is  no  part  of  my  purpose 
to  supply  anything  of  the  kind.  But  in  carrying  out 
the  plan  I  have  suggested,  of  properly  apportioning 
the  different  kinds  of  reading,  it  will  be  convenient  for 
the  student  to  keep  in  mind  some  distinct  classification 
of  hterature,  more  or  less  elaborate,  according  to  cir- 
cumstances. 

In  a  general  way,  the  following  will  answer  very  well 
as  a  basis  for  such  a  classification  as  will  be  found 
necessary  : 

History,  Physical  Science, 

Biography,  Poetrj, 

Philosophy,  Fiction , 

Travels  and  Explorations,  Specialties  :  ( Theology, 

Law,  anything  professional.) 
The  comparative  value  and  importance  of  these  seve- 
ral classes  of  literature   is   an  indeterminate  one,  and 
it  varies  with  the  wants,  the  temperament,  the  capabili- 
ties, and  the  circumstances  of  each  student. 

In  a  general  way,  where  there  are  no  circumstances 
making  one  of  these  more  important  than  the  others, 
and  where  the  object  is  simply  the  improvement  of  the 
reader,  some  attention  should  be  given  to  each,  and  thg 


122  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOUESELF. 

beut  of  the  reader  will  ordinarily  indicate  which  shoulj 
enter  most  largely  into  the  coui'se. 

For  most  readers  History  (including  philosophical 
essays  on  historical  subjects)  should  form  the  larger 
part  of  the  course,  inasmuch  as  it  supplies  at  once  a 
vast  stock  of  information,  and  an  equally  large  share  ol 
culture .  , 

NOVEL   READING. 

In  point  of  fact,  there  will  ordinarily  be  moi-e  fiction 
read  than  anything  else.  In  our  day  we  have  stories 
and  stories,  and  without  entering  into  any  discussion 
whatever  of  the  merits  of  novel-reading,  I  may  safe- 
ly say  that  most  people  read  too  much  fiction,  and 
certainly  a  large  part  of  the  fictitious  Hterature  of 
the  day — even  after  excluding  all  of  the  trash — is 
without  any  especial  value  to  the  reader,  while  the  time 
its  perusal  occupies  greatly  hmits  the  amount  of  other 
reading  possible. 

My  advice  to  the  student  is,  to  read  about  half  of 
Dickens's  novels  ;  one  or  two  of  George  Eliot's  ;  one  or 
two  of  Bulwer's  best ;  most  of  Scott's — these  being  his- 
tory as  much  as  anything  else; — Vanity  Fair,  and  one  or 
two  others  of  Thackeray's  ;  a  few  of  the  older  Eng- 
lish novels  of  standard  reputation,  with  one  or  two  of 
the  best  of  our  American  books  of  the  sort. 

There  are  many  others  absorbingly  interesting  and 
without  positively  objectionable  characteristics  of  any 
kind,  but  life  is  too  short  for  the  reading  even  of  all  the 
good  novels  in  print — particularly  if  the  reader  wishes  to 
do  anything  else  in  the  world. 

Such  a  Hst  as  the  one  given  above,  will  occupy  as 
large  a  portion  of  time  as  most  of  us  can  afford  to  givd 


GENERAL  READING.  123 

to  novel-reading,  and  the  man  who  has  read  all,  or 
nearly  all,  the  books  mentioned,  is  as  well  read  in  the 
matter  of  novels  as  anybody  needs  to  be,  unless  his 
reading  is  very  extensive,  in  which  case  a  larger  amount 
of  fiction  would  be  well  enough.  A  healthful  propor- 
tioii  is  what  we  should  aim  to  maintain. 

But  these  should  not  be  read  at  the  beginning  of  the 
course,  nor  should  any  considerable  number  of  them  be 
read  consecutively.  It  is  best  first  to  form  a  taste  for 
something  less  exciting,  and  to  avoid  impairing  that 
taste  afterwards,  by  an  injudicious  amount  of  novel- 
reading  at  any  one  time. 

THE   BEADING    OF   HISTORY. 

I  have  before  me,  as  I  write,  a  letter  from  a  young 
man  who  says  that  his  education  thus  far  has  been 
mainly  self-conducted,  and  that  having  completed  his 
text-book  study,  he  wishes  now  to  become  a  well- 
read  man.  To  this  end  he  understands  that  he  must 
know  something  of  history,  and  he  writes  to  ascertain 
how  much  of  history  is  necessary,  "  for,"  continues  the 
letter,  "  I  want  to  read  just  as  little  of  dry  chronicles  as 
I  can  get  on  with." 

Now  the  case  of  this  young  man  is  not  an  exceptional 
one  by  any  means.  He  will  never  be  even  a  tolerably 
well-informed  person,  as  a  matter  of  course,  unless  his 
ideas  shall  undergo  a  radical  change,  which  is  hardly 
probable.  But  there  are  two  or  three  mistakes  which 
he  makes  in  common  with  many  other  peojDle,  and  hia 
case  furnishes  me  an  opportunity  to  correct  them  in  the 
minds  of  more  hopeful  students. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  no  less  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  intelligence  may  begotten  by  an  indolent,  shii'king 


124  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

system  of  reading,  than  to  imagine  that  textbooks  will 
yiel'l  their  treasures  to  the  careless  and  listless  student. 
The  man  who  begins  a  course  of  reading  with  the  wish 
to  make  it  as  meagre  as  possible,  is  not  likely  ever  to 
make  it  of  any  great  value  to  himself.  It  is  only  those 
who  hunger  after  information  that  manage  to  digest  it, 
and  the  desire  and  the  purpose  must  be  stronger  than 
they  seem  to  be  in  the  miud  of  my  correspondent,  be- 
fore there  can  be  reasonable  hope  that  they  will  bi'ing 
about  anything  like  satisfactory  results. 

There  are  cases  in  which  the  student  feels,  at  first, 
but  little  pleasure  in  reading,  but  resolutely  pursues  hia 
course  from  a  strong  desire  to  profit  by  his  labor,  and 
to  such  the  pleasure  soon  comes  to  strengthen  the 
purpose.  But  when  the  purjDOse  itself  is  weak,  and  no 
pleasure  is  felt  in  the  self-imposed  task,  a  vague  wish 
to  be  well  informed,  or  to  appear  so,  is  not  sufficient  to 
keep  the  man  at  his  work,  and  he  might  almost  as  well 
abandon  the  purpose  in  the  outset. 

A  second  error  is  the  assumption  that  history  is  a 
matter  of  dry  chronichng.  It  is  a  series  of  chronicles, 
of  course,  but  so  is  every  novel,  for  that  matter.  The 
events  in  the  one  case  are  real,  and  in  the  other  imagi- 
nary, and  this  far  history  has  the  advantage.  There  is 
less  of  unity  in  history  than  in  fiction,  but  as  a 
whole,  the  former  is  no  less  startlingly  dramatic  than 
the  latter,  and  to  a  healthful  taste  there  is  quite  aa 
much  of  absorbing  intex-est  in  true  stories  of  men's 
deeds  as  in  fictitious  ones. 

While  we  are  upon  the  subject  of  historical  reading, 
let  me  add  a  few  suggestions  which  may  be  of  service. 

Compends  of  history  are  almost  worthless  as  original 
reading.     To  bring  them  within  the  required  hmits  it 


GENERAL  BEADING.  125 

becomes  necessary  to  eliminate  nearly  everything  of 
value  from  the  narration,  and  that  which  is  left  is  but 
the  merest  skeleton  of  the  tale  they  are  intended  to  tell. 
It  is  not  possible  to  learn  history  from  books  of  this 
Kort,  and  as  histories  they  are  worthless.  They  are  to 
history  just  what  epitomes  of  English  literature  are  to 
English  literatui'e  in  its  fullness,  and  properly  used 
they  have  their  value,  just  as  these  have  theirs  in  their 
proper  spheres. 

It  is  a  very  good  plan,  after  the  student  has  complet- 
ed an  extended  course  of  history,  either  general  or  spe- 
cial, to  take  up  an  abridgment  or  brief  compend,  cover- 
ing the  same  ground.  By  this  means  the  course  which 
has  been  read  wiU  be  easily  reviewed,  and  the  student 
wiU  have  at  a  single  glance  a  comprehensive  view  of  the 
whole  com'se  over  which  he  has  travelled.  This  is  the 
use,  and  almost  the  only  good  use  to  which  brief  histo- 
rical compends  can  be  put. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  the  necessity  of  reading 
both  sides  in  history,  as  in  everything  else.  I  must 
also  caution  the  student  against  a  habit  of  accepting 
authority  on  historical  matters  unquestioningly. 

Passion,  prejudice,  circumstances  of  aU  kinds,  enter 
largely  into  the  telhng  of  the  world's  story,  and  he 
who  would  get  at  the  truth  must  weigh  carefully  the 
probabilities  in  every  doubtful  case,  and  make  due  al- 
lowance for  all  these  in  making  up  his  opinions. 

But  aside  fi'om  the  fact  that  such  a  practice  is  neces- 
sary to  the  discovery  of  truth,  it  is  even  more  import- 
ant as  a  habit  of  mind  tending  to  healthful  culture.  It 
exercises  the  judgment  and  it  cultivates  a  wholesome 
habit  of  doubting  and  investigating,  the  value  of  which 
can  hardly  be  over-estimated. 


126  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOUKSELP. 

In  reading  history  it  ia  well  to  remember  that  specu- 
lative essays  upon  historical  subjects  are  quite  as  im- 
portant a  part  of  history  as  the  narrative  itself,  and  it 
is  an  excellent  plan  to  follow  every  course  of  history 
proper  with  the  best  essays  to  be  had  upon  the  events 
or  the  men  involved. 

These  sometimes  take  the  shape  of  biogi'aphies — 
Bometimes  they  appear  as  book  reviews,  and  sometimes 
they  come  to  us  professing  to  be  just  what  they  are. 
But  whatever  their  shape,  they  are  peculiarly  valuable. 
They  furnish  at  once  a  brief  review  of  the  history  read, 
and  a  thoughtful  commentary  upon  it. 

POETRY. 

In  reading  poetry,  the  especial  purpose,  aside  from 
amusement,  is  the  cultivation  of  sesthetic  feeling.  To 
cultivate  this  worthily  it  is  necessary  that  everything  be 
avoided  which  will  tend  to  warp  the  taste  or  to  make 
it  one-sided.  To  a  great  extent  we  read  poetry 
only  for  the  sake  of  the  amusement  it  affords,  and  to 
that  extent  our  selection  is  dictated  by  our  tastes,  but  it 
is  well  enough  to  let  the  judgment  have  some  control 
even  here.  I  have  known  ill  results  to  follow  from  the 
too  exclusive  reading  of  the  works  of  a  single  poet 
or  a  single  school  of  poets,  and  this  is  the  fault  against 
which  I  would  especially  caution  the  reader. 

We  need  nothing  so  much  as  cathoHcity,  both  of 
opinion  and  taste,  and  this  can  be  secured  only  by 
careful  culture. 

Especially  is  this  true  in  matters  of  literary  taste. 
We  not  only  need  to  know  what  different  poets  have 
written,  and  their  several  characteristics,  but  we  need, 
quite  as  imperatively,  to  so  far  cultivate  a  cathoHcity  of 


GENERAL  EEADING.  127 

taste  tliat  we  can  appreciate  the  merits  and  the  beauties 
of  each.  Our  reading  of  poetry,  whether  it  be  a 
limited  or  an  extensive  one,  should  in  any  event  em- 
brace as  large  a  variety  as  possible.  There  are  people 
who  appreciate  Byron,  and  Scott,  and  Shelley,  or 
Pope,  and  Dryden,  and  there  are  others  who  love 
Wordsworth,  and  Longfellow,  and  Tennyson.  Very 
much  smaller  is  the  class  of  people  who  love  and  appre- 
ciate all  of  these  and  othei-s,  but  these  few  are  they  who 
see  more  of  beauty  in  each  than  the  special  lovers  of 
each  will  ever  see  there,  and  who  are  able  to  set  down 
every  singer  at  his  proper  valuation. 

"With  this  sole  caution,  I  say  to  the  reader,  follow  the 
bent  of  your  own  taste  in  the  matter  of  poetry,  just  as 
you  would  in  regard  to  pictures,  or  any  other  creations 
of  art.  Let  your  taste  be  your  chief  guide  in  matters  of 
taste,  but  take  care  to  cultivate  it  judiciously,  in  order 
that  it  may  be  a  safe  and  competent  guide. 

BIOGRAPHY,    ETC. 

Biography,  Travels,  Explorations,  and  similar  mat- 
ters are,  to  a  great  extent,  but  history  in  another  form. 
The  story  of  a  leading  man's  life  is  the  story  of  his 
times.  Travels  and  explorations  usually  contribute  to 
history,  past  or  present,  more  than  to  anything  else,  and 
the  accounts  given  of  them  by  the  traveller  are  histories 
in  themselves. 

In  a  general  way,  what  has  been  said  in  regard  to  the 
study  of  history  applies  equally  to  the  reading  of  books 
of  this  sort,  except  that  it  should  be  remembered  that 
biographies  and  books  of  travel  are  often  slices  of  his- 
tory cut  uncommonly  thick.  If  we  read  an  extended 
biography  of  any  but  the  very  foremost    man  of  his 


128  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

age,  we  may  be  devoting  to  a  small  segment  of  tlie 
world's  history  an  amount  of  time  wholly  out  of  pro- 
portion to  its  relative  importance.  And  the  same  thing 
is  true  of  other  books  of  this  class. 

As  a  rule,  therefore,  it  is  best  to  avoid  merely  histo- 
rical biographies  as  a  part  of  historical  reading  where 
their  subject  was  not  pre-eminently  the  foremost  man 
of  his  age — where  his  story  is  not  whoUy  the  story  of 
bis  time  in  some  respect. 

There  is  another  trouble  with  biographies,  which 
should  be  borne  constantly  in  mind  while  they  are  in 
reading,  and  that  is,  that  the  personal  element  enters 
vei-y  largely  into  their  composition.  Men  who  write 
biogi'aphies  do  so,  very  generaU}',  for  the  purpose  of 
exalting  or  depreciating  the  man  who  forms  the  subject 
of  their  work,  or  to  do  the  same  thing  for  some  mea- 
sure with  which  his  life  was  in  some  way  interwoven. 
They  wi'ite  the  man's  Hfe  because  they  greatly  admire 
or  particularly  detest  him  or  his  theories,  or  because 
they  wish  to  advance  some  particular  end,  or  for  some 
other  reason  equally  fatal  to  fairness.  "Whether  con- 
scious of  it  or  not,  the  wi'iters  of  this  kind  of  biogra- 
phies almost  always  occupy  the  position  of  an  advocate 
rather  than  that  of  a  judge,  and  this  is  not  the  way  in 
which  history  should  be  written. 

There  are,  of  course,  exceptions  to  this,  but  they  are 
the  exceptions  merely,  and  not  the  rule,  and  what  I 
would  urge  upon  the  student  is  the  necessity  of  taking 
care  to  give  this  personal  element  its  full  weight  in  de- 
termining the  value  of  conclusions  drawn  from  books 
of  this  class. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  biography  is,  to  very  many  people,  the  most  at- 


GENEEAL  BEADING.  15:29 

tractive  form  in  which  history  can  be  put,  and  hence  its 
usefulness,  as  mere  history,  is  very  great. 

Again,  there  are  biographies  not  historical — stories  of 
the  lives  of  men  whose  lives  form  no  part  of  public  his- 
tory. These  are  close  studies  of  human  development, 
and  form  an  admirable  department  of  reading  by  them« 
selves.  To  these,  what  I  have  said  of  merely  histori- 
cal biography  does  not  apply  at  all,  and  to  some  extent 
all  written  lives  of  individual  men  partake  of  this  ex- 
cellent quality,  when  the  work  is  at  all  well  done,  and 
from  this  point  of  view  biography  has  a  value  wholly 
apart  from  its  worth  as  history. 

DICTIONARIES   AS   KEADING-MATTER. 

The  book  must  be  a  very  bad,  or  an  extremely  poor 
one,  which  has  nothing  in  it  worth  reading,  when  there 
is  nothing  better  at  hand. 

There  are  so  many  books  which  we  need  to  read 
and  cannot  for  want  of  time,  that  very  many  good  ones 
must  be  left  unread,  so  that  we  may  have  time  for 
the  ones  most.iraperatively  necessary  to  us.  Compara- 
tively there  are  vast  numbers  of  books  not  worth  the 
reading, — positively  there  are  very  few,  except  the 
trashy  ones  known  as  sensational  novels. 

That  is  to  say,  there  are  very  few  books  which 
are  not  well  worth  the  reading  when  there  are  no  bet- 
ter ones  at  hand,  and  so  there  will  come  times  to  every 
one  of  us  when  we  can  take  up  and  read  books  which 
we  should  never  select  where  there  is  room  for  selection, 
but  which  are  in  themselves  v/orth  the  reading.  It  is  a 
good  rule  never  to  be  caught  anywl^iere  without  a 
good  supply  of  reading- matter,  but  very  few  of  us  live 
strictly  up  to  it.     The  next  best  thing  is  to  know  how 


130  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

to  make  the  most  of  such  literature  as  we  can  get  when 
our  choice  is  a  ver}'  limited  one  under  stress  of  circum- 
Btauce. 

I  remember  a  strongly  illustrative  case  in  point. 
I  spent  nearly  a  week  once  in  a  little  village  in  Ten- 
nessee, during  a  rainy  season,  when  walking  out  of  doora 
was  simply  out  of  the  question.  The  only  books  to  be 
had  at  all  were  the  Children  of  the  Abbey,  Tupper's  Pro- 
yerbial  Philosophy,  and  about  one  half  of  an  old  John- 
son's Dictionary. 

Doubtless  I  might  have  got  something  out  of  Tupper, 
and  possibly  a  vague  shadow  of  amusement  out  of  the 
Children  of  the  Abbey,  but  the  old  Dictionary  was 
by  odds  the  most  promising  of  the  three,  and  I  read 
it  for  five  consecutive  days,  making  some  curious  word- 
ytudies  in  which  I  became  greatly  interested.  From 
that  day  to  this,  I  have  never  been  at  a  loss  for  some- 
thing to  read  in  any  house  containing  a  dictionary,  and 
I  strongly  commend  all  dictionaries  and  books  of  that 
kind  as  reading  matter  of  a  very  interesting  and 
instructive  character.  Their  value  as  books  of  reference 
is  not  their  only  value  by  any  means,  even  if  this  be 
their  chief  use.  It  will  pay  to  go  through  an  unabridged 
Webster  or  Worcester  once  or  twice  at  least  during  a 
lifetime,  not  reading  everything  in  it  by  any  means, 
but  picking  out  here  and  there  the  things  one  wants. 

Still  more  interesting  is  a  biographical  dictionary,  or 
the  dictionary  of  some  technical  specialty,  if  the  spe- 
cialty be  one  in  which  the  reader  feels  an  interest,  and 
a  good  encyclopedia  is  always  a  treasure.  Not  that 
anybody  should  think  of  reading  any  one  of  these 
regularly  through,  or  taking  it  uj)  as  set  task -work. 
But  there  are  odd  times  when  we  have  nothing  else  at 


GENEEAL  BEADING.  131 

hand,  or  when  we  cai'e  for  nothing  else  for  the  moment, 
and  at  such  times  one  cannot  do  better  than  to  tm*n  the 
leaves  of  a  good  dictionary,  or  encyclopedia,  in  search 
of  something  which  will  strike  the  fancy. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

BOW  TO  STVDT  AA'D  JtEAD   TO    THE  BEST  ADVANTAGR 

A  GOOD  many  of  the  suggestions  I  shall  give  in  this 
concluding  chapter  follow  as  corollaries  from  the  teach- 
ings ah-eady  given.  Some  of  them  are  but  recapitula- 
tions of  the  suggestions  scattered  through  former  chap- 
ters ;  others  have  found  no  place  there. 

They  are  grouped  together  here  for  the  sake  of  the 
student's  convenience,  and  because  they  constitute  a 
fitting  conclusion  to  my  little  book. 

A   PKACTICAL   EDUCATION. 

The  end  to  be  aimed  at  in  every  case  should,  of 
course,  be  the  securing  of  as  wide  and  perfect  and  com- 
plete a  culture  as  possible,  and  the  acquisition  of  as 
much  information  as  the  limits  of  time  and  opportunity 
will  allow. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  perfect,  ideal  educa- 
tion is  that  which  completely  and  perfectly  develops  the 
man,  bringing  all  his  faculties  into  full  play,  and  sup- 
plying each  with  all  the  information  necessary  to  its 
very  best  work. 

Practically  the  best  education  to  be  secured  is  one 
which  falls  far  short  of  this,  and  the  best  educated  pco- 


HOW  TO  STUDY  AND  READ.  133 

pie  we  have  are  those  who  know  some  one  thing  thor- 
oughly, and  have  a  general  acquaintance  with  others. 
Practically,  this  should  be  the  object  aimed  at  by  every 
student,  and  it  should  constitute  the  basis  of  all  his 
work.  But  in  projecting  and  pursuing  a  course  of 
study  and  reading  with  this  end  in  view,  there  is  always 
the  danger  of  giving  to  the  one  thing  too  great  a  share 
of  attention,  and  so  failing  to  accomplish  the  equally 
important  purpose  of  making  one's  self  acquainted 
generally  with  other  branches  of  human  knowledge. 
This  danger  comes  to  every  student,  and  it  cannot  be 
too  carefully  avoided. 

ECONOHV   OF   TIME. 

Every  student  whose  purpose  is  in  any  way  a  worthy 
one,  will  find  his  time  far  less  abundant  than  he  could 
wish,  and  therefore  it  becomes  especially  necessary  that 
he  shall  economize  it  carefully  ;  and  there  are  many 
ways  in  which  this  may  be  done. 

Whenever  a  book  is  taken  up,  whether  for  study  as  a 
text-book  or  only  for  reading,  the  purpose  it  is  to  serve 
and  the  limits  of  its  capacity  to  serve  that  purpose, 
should  be  distinctly  recognized.  The  student  should 
ask  himself — "  Why  do  I  want  this  book  ?  What  can 
it  give  me  ?  How  much  of  it  is  worth  more  to  me  than 
the  time  I  must  give  to  its  reading  ?"  He  should 
always  remember  that  no  bo  ok  yields  anything  gratis  ; 
that  he  pays,  in  the  coin  of  precious  time,  for  every- 
thing he  gets  out  of  books,  and  that  it  is  the  worst 
kind  of  extravagance  to  read  any  book,  or  any  part  of 
any  book,  which  does  not  yield  to  the  reader  something 
of  more   value  to  him  than  is  the  time  given  to  the 


13-4  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

reading.  'We  cannot  afford  to  read  even  good  books 
when  there  ai'e  better  or  more  necessary  ones  awaiting 
our  attention.  And  this  is  equally  true  of  parts  of 
books.  By  a  liltle  attention  to  this  the  student  will 
save  a  great  deal  of  time.  When  he  shall  have  read  aa 
much  of  a  book  as  he  can  afford  to  read,  let  him  drop 
it  at  once,  in  order  that  he  may  have  time  for  others. 

A  gi'eat  deal  of  time  is  wasted,  too,  by  a  habit  of  in- 
attention, and  the  student  should  take  the  utmost  care 
to  avoid  the  formation  of  such  a  habit,  or  to  cure  it  if 
it  is  already  formed.  It  is  easy  enough  to  do  this,  if 
only  the  purpose  be  strong  enough.  You  have  only  to 
begin  with  vex'y  short  terms  of  study,  lettmg  them 
be  as  fi-equent  in  their  recurrence  as  possible.  Whenever 
your  attention  shall  flag,  make  an  effort  to  keep  it  fixed, 
and  the  moment  you  shall  hud  yourself  unable  to  control 
it  longer,  cease  to  study.  Take  a  walk,  work  in  your  gar- 
den, or  do  something  else  which  will  rest  your  mind,  and 
after  a  brief  period  of  physical  exertion,  return  to  your 
studies.  With  every  return  you  will  be  able  to  fix  your 
attention  for  a  longer  period  than  before,  and  your  ha- 
bit will  soon  be  cured. 

It  is  always  bad  to  go  on  reading  when  the  mind  is 
occupied  with  something  else.  Such  a  practice  fixes 
upon  the  mind  and  the  eye  a  habit  of  separate  action, 
which  soon  becomes  chronic,  and  the  habit  is  fatal  to 
profitable  reading. 

WHAT   TO    DO    WITH   THE   MEMORY. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  nonsense  talked,  concerning 
the  cultivation  of  the  memory,  and  a  good  deal  of  harm 
done  in  attempts  to  develop  it  abnormally,  as  well  aa 


HOW  TO  STUDY  AND  READ.         135 

in  making  a  misuse  of  it  in  the  study  of  matters  with 
the  real  learning  of  which  it  has  very  little  to  do. 

Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  prodigious  memories  are 
b}  no  means  very  rare.  "  Lightning  calculators  "  have 
beeD  known  almost  as  long  as  arithmetic,  although  they 
have  rarely  been  men  who  really  knew  arithmetic,  mar- 
vellous as  their  j)ower  of  conjuring  with  figures  haa 
always  appeared  to  be  to  the  gaping  crowd.  The  world 
has  always  had  people  whose  memories  were  next  to 
marvellous  in  their  extent  and  power,  and  we  always 
shall  have  them  so  long  as  the  fact  shall  remain  that 
almost  any  person  may,  if  he  will,  make  his  memory  re- 
ceive and  retain  everything,  or  nearly  everything,  given 
to  it. 

There  is  nothing  easier  than  the  development  of  a 
prodigious  memory,  and  there  is  no  faculty  of  the  mind 
so  httle  worthy  of  such  extreme  cultivation. 

I  once  knew  a  lecturer  who  vaunted  his  memory  and 
its  performances,  as  the  most  marvellous  thing  with 
which  he  was  acquainted.  He  told  his  audiences  how 
he  could  not  only  repeat  the  Bible  from  begiuning  to 
end,  but  also  give  the  chapter  and  verse  of  any  portion 
if  repeated  in  his  presence.  He  could  repeat,  also, 
every  conceivable  detail  of  minute  geographical  fact, 
and  do  half  a  hundred  other  utterly  useless  things. 

The  man  was  a  fool ;  but  any  person  of  good  ordi- 
nary capacity  can  learn  all  that  he  learned,  by  giving 
as  he  did  a  lifetime  to  the  task.  The  trouble  is  that  the 
price  is  worth  so  much  more  than  the  commodity. 

But  while  all  this  is  true,  it  is  also  true  that  a  good, 
trustworthy  memory  is  of  very  great  service,  and  such 
a  memory  is  well  worth  cultivating,  within  reason- 
able hmita. 


136        HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 


HOW   TO    CDLTXVATE   THE   MEMORY. 

If  we  wish  to  develop  the  muscles  of  any  particular 
part  of  our  bodies,  we  proceed  to  exercise  those  mus- 
cles moderately  and  regularly.  It  is  only  by  exercise 
that  we  cau  hope  to  strengthen  and  improve  them. 

With  the  faculties  of  the  mind  we  do  precisely  the 
same  thing.  If  we  wish  to  reason  closely  and  accu- 
rately, we  must  constantly  exercise  the  reasoning  facul- 
ties. If  we  wish  to  develop  the  mathematical  powers  of 
our  minds,  we  must  make  daily  use  of  mathematical 
exercises.  Now,  in  this  respect,  the  memor}'  does  not 
differ  from  the  other  intellectual  faculties,  except  that 
its  proper  cultivation  is  rather  easier  than  that  of  most 
others. 

To  secure  a  good  memory,  therefore,  it  is  only  neces- 
sary that  the  student  shall  exercise  it  systematically, 
and  we  are  all  doing  this  every  day  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree. 

We  must,  however,  avoid  things  which  tend  to  im- 
pair the  faculty,  of  which  there  are  several  worthy  of 
mention. 

THINGS   THAT   IMPAIK   THE   MEMORY 

Inattention  is  the  first  and  greatest  cause  of  bad 
memoi'ies,  and  there  was  a  deal  of  force  in  Lord  By- 
ron's remark,  that  he  had  forgotten  his  Latin  and 
Greek,  "  if  a  man  may  be  said  to  have  foi'gotten  that 
which  he  never  remembered." 

The  way  in  which  this  habit  of  inattention  is  most 
commonly  cultivated  is  in  the  careless  reading  of  mat- 
ters  of  no  importance, — newspaper  paragraphs,  items, 


HOW  TO   STUDY  AND  BEAD.  137 

(Jetaclied  thoughts, — anything  which  makes  no  impres- 
sion on  the  reader.  The  reading  of  such  things  gene- 
rates a  habit  of  careless,  inattentive  reading  which  is 
often  fatal  to  anything  like  a  good  memoiy. 

The  same  is  true  of  many  other  things,  which  will 
readily  suggest  themselves  to  the  reader,  whose  i  ule  it 
should  be,  if  his  memory  be  defective,  never  to  do  any- 
thing carelessly  or  inattentively  —  even  though  the 
thing  done  be  in  itself  unworthy  of  a  better  doing. 

Many  people  find  that  while  they  remember  some 
things  perfectly,  they  are  apt  to  forget  just  the  ones  they 
most  want  to  remember.  This  arises  in  a  large  degree 
from  the  total  absence  of  system  which  is  so  common  in 
matters  of  memoiy.  Even  people  who  carefully  classify 
and  arrange  their  learning  for  all  other  purposes  often 
omit  wholly  to  do  this  for  the  memory,  reading  and 
studying  laboriously,  but  leaving  it  altogether  to  chance 
what  things  acquired  from  the  reading  and  the  study 
shall  be  remembered,  and  what  foi'gotten.  That  this 
is  the  common  practice  I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt, 
but  it  is  certainly  a  singularly  bad  one. 

We  all  know  that  we  can  remember  any  given 
thing  by  "  fixing  it  in  the  memory  "  as  the  phrase  has 
it, — that  is  to  say,  we  are  all  conscious  that  the  memory 
may  be  greatly  aided  by  the  formation  of  a  deliberate 
purpose  to  remember.  Now  it  is  clearly  impossible  that 
we  shall  make  such  a  deliberate  effort  for  the  retention 
of  every  fact  and  every  principle  we  meet  in  our  study, 
reading  and  observation,  and  the  obvious  conclusion  is 
that  we  should  make  some  classification  of  these  facts 
and  principles,  so  that  we  may  select  those  which  are 
most  important  and  make  an  especial  effort  to  retain 


J  38  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

them.  A  good  classification  fox-  this  purpose  is  the 
following  : 

To  be  remembered. 

To  bt  held  ready  for  reference  when  wanted. 

Not  tvante  furlher. 

Under  the  first  head  should  come  all  those  things 
which  it  is  not  worth  while  to  remember  in  detail ; 
under  the  second,  all  those  which  we  need  only  to 
remember  generally,  whUe  we  remember  just  where  they 
may  be  found  when  wanted  in  detail ;  under  the  third, 
of  course,  should  come  everything  not  worth  a  special 
efifort  of  the  memory,  though  many  of  them  will  be  use- 
ful, if  remembered  without  such  special  effort. 

A  very  fi'uitful  source  of  failure  in  attempts  to  culti- 
vate the  memory  is  the  common  mistake  of  confound- 
ing the  husk  with  the  grain,  and  learning  to  retain 
words  rather  than  the  ideas  they  express.  There  are 
many  peoj)le  who  readily  commit  the  words  of  a  book 
to  memory  whenever  they  choose,  but  who  after  reading 
a  volume  find  it  very  difficult  to  remember  anything  of 
its  contents,  except  the  passages  which  have  been  me- 
morized absolutely.  Such  memories  are  provokingly 
worthless,  and  yet  there  are  teachers  in  plenty  who 
take  pains  to  cultivate  just  such  in  their  pupils. 

As  a  rule,  the  exact  phraseology  of  a  book  is  never 
worth  remembering,  either  in  whole  or  in  considerable 
part,  and  ordinarily  it  is  a  waste  of  time  to  commit 
words  to  memory  ;  but  the  mental  habit  of  the  stu- 
dent is  a  very  defective  one  if  he  fails  to  retain,  in  a 
general  way,  the  ideas  of  every  book  read. 

In  this,  as  in  every  other  case,  it  is  the  thoughts  and 
not  the  mere  words — the  kernels  and  not  the  shells — 
that  are  wanted,  and  in  cultivating  the  memory,  the 


HOW  TO  STUDY  ANI>   BEAD.  139 

student  needs  to  look  sharply  to  his  processes,  lest  he 
cultivate  it  in  the  wrong  direction.  Let  him  remember 
that  while  every  faculty  is  developed  by  exercise,  each 
is  developed  strongly  in  the  particular  direction  in 
which  the  exercise  points,  and  that  it  is  therefore  espe- 
cially requisite  that  he  shall  make  the  exercise  of  his 
aaemory  a  healthful  one  in  kind  as  well  as  in  amount. 

MEMORANDUM   BOOKS,  ETC. 

Memorandum  books  and  other  mechanical  contri- 
vances are  often  useful  and  sometimes  very  necessai"y, 
but  they  are  susceptible  of  abuse  and  capable  of  work- 
ing gi'eat  injury  to  the  memory  they  are  meant  to 
serve.  When  anything  is  to  be  remembered  it  is  so 
convenient  to  jot  down  a  note  of  it,  that  the  plan  is  of- 
ten resorted  to  where  the  memory  itself  should  bo 
trusted,  and  the  habit  of  relying  upon  memoranda  ra- 
ther than  upon  the  memory  itself,  is  often  fatal  to  the 
proper  development  of  that  faculty. 

In  giving  a  special  caution  thus  against  the  abuse  of 
memorandum  books,  I  do  so  only  because  these  are  the 
commonest  forms  of  artificial  aids  to  memory,  but  what 
I  say  of  these  is  equally  true  of  every  other  device  of 
the  kind,  and  there  are  many  of  them  in  use.  The 
rule  should  be  the  same  in  all  cases,  and  it  should  be  to 
use  mechanical  aids  as  little  as  possible,  and  to  carefully 
observe  their  effects  upon  the  memory,  in  oi^der  that 
they  may  not  be  allowed  to  sap  it  unawares. 

I  have  found  it  a  good  plan  in  my  own  case,  to  make 
memoranda  aids  to  memory,  rather  than  substitutes  for 
it.  Let  me  explain  what  I  mean  a  little  more  fully. 
When  I  particularly  wish  to  remember  any  isolated 
fact  or  other  thing,  I  have  no  difficulty  in  doing  so,  by 


140  HOW  TO   EDUCATE    lOURSELP. 

simply  determining  that  I  will.  But  when  1  have  to 
collect  and  remember  a  considerable  number  of  things 
for  future  classification  and  use,  (as,  for  instance,  when 
collecting  and  arranging  in  my  mind  the  materials  for 
an  essay  or  a  book,)  the  unaided  memory  is  not  suffi- 
cient, and  so  a  resort  to  memorandum  books  must  bo 
hacL  In  these  I  jot  down  brief  notes  of  the  things  I 
wish  to  use,  making  a  rude  classification  of  them  as 
they  occur  to  me  from  day  to  day.  When  this  is  done 
I  lay  the  note-books  away,  and  have  no  occasion  what- 
ever to  refer  to  the  memoranda  in  usinjj  the  material 
collected.  The  act  of  making  a  \vritten  note  of  any- 
thing serves  to  fix  the  thing  in  my  memory,  and  ordin- 
arily I  have  no  fui-ther  use  for  the  note  after  it  is  once 
made. 

Now,  I  do  not  put  this  forward  as  a  plan  for  others' 
following.  Perhaps  to  most  of  my  readers  my  contri- 
vances of  this  sort  would  be  worthless,  while  others 
which  would  work  well  with  them  would  be  of  no  ser- 
vice to  me.  In  all  such  matters  every  man  is  and 
must  be  a  law  unto  himself,  and  in  giving  my  own  plan 
to  the  reader  I  offer  it  only  as  a  suggestion  which  may 
possibly  point  the  way  to  some  device  of  his  own 
■which  will  similarly  serve  his  purpose. 

And  just  here  a  general  caution  is  necessary  against 
all  attempts  to  adopt  other  people's  plans  in  matters  of 
this  and  hke  sorts.  Nearly  all  young  people  try  to 
follow  some  other  person's  lead  in  such  matters,  and  in 
doing  so  they  almost  always  fail  because  the  processes 
of  different  minds  are  different. 

The  only  safe  course  is  to  let  the  working  rules  of 
other  people  serve  as  suggestions  for  processes  adapted 
to  your  own  wants  and  your  own  pecuharities. 


HOW  TO  STUDY  AND  READ.  141 

And  whatever  your  processes  of  intellectual  work 
may  be,  above  everything  else  avoid  making  your  rules 
or  those  of  other  people  your  masters.  They  are  ol 
service  only  while  they  serve,  and  the  moment  they 
assume  control  over  the  man,  they  become  tyrants  of  a 
particularly  objectionable  sort. 

MECHAOTCAli   MEMOBY. 

The  student  wiU  almost  certainly  meet,  sooner  or 
later,  with  systems  of  mechanical  memory, — elaborate 
contrivances  by  which  to  remember  mechanically 
whatever  one  wishes  to  remember  without  any  culti- 
vation of  the  faculty  involved.  These  systems  often 
contain  a  few  good  suggestions  for  use  in  the  com- 
paratively limited  number  of  cases  in  which  it  is  possible 
and  desirable  to  remember  things  mechanically  ;  but  as 
systems  they  are  worthless,  always,  of  necessity,  and  to 
make  any  attempt  to  master  one  of  them  is  to  simply 
throw  away  time.  They  are  worthless,  in  the  first 
place,  because  of  their  very  elaborateness,  which  makes 
it  a  more  difficult  task  to  master  them  than  it  would  be 
to  cultivate  the  memory  itself  to  a  far  greater  degree  of 
precision  than  the  systems  can  justly  claim.  In  the 
second  place,  with  all  their  seeming  completeness,  they 
usually  fail  just  where  they  are  needed  most.  Thirdly, 
it  is  generally  more  difficult  to  remember  their  de- 
vices for  remembering  things  than  it  would  be 
to  remember  the  things  themselves.  But,  after  all,  the 
chief  difficulty  with  all  these  systems  lies  in  the  fact 
that  they  aim  only  at  the  recollection  of  woi'ds,-  • 
they  deal  only  with  the  husks  of  knowledge,  and  hence 
are  inherently  unworthy. 


112  HOW  TO   EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 


HOW   MUCH    TO    READ. 

Students  are  often  led  to  inquire  how  much  they 
should  read  within  a  month  or  a  year,  and  answers  of 
all  sorts  have  been  given  to  the  question. 

In  this  as  in  other  matters  of  a  similar  nature  it  is 
impossible  to  give  an  estimate  worth  anything,  or  one 
which  will  be  even  approximately  correct  in  a  majority 
of  cases. 

The  general  principle  is,  that  we  should  not  read 
more  than  we  can  digest  ;  but  what  would  be  a  surfeit 
for  one  intellect  is  wholly  insufficient  for  the  ordinary 
food  of  another.  Moreover,  it  is  difficult  for  the  reader 
to  discover  just  how  perfectly  or  imperfectly  he  has 
assimilated  his  intellectual  food. 

Again,  we  may  store  the  mind  to-day  with  information 
to  be  digested  long  hence,  and  the  fact  that  we  have 
not  yet  made  positive  use  of  all  that  we  have  read  is  not 
proof  that  we  have  read  too  much. 

In  point  of  fact,  very  few  people  read  too  much. 
Most  of  us  read  far  too  little,  and  the  student  need 
have  very  little  apprehension  on  the  score  of  an  intel- 
lectual surfeit.  The  appetite  is  in  this  case  a  pretty 
safe  guide,  and  in  a  very  large  majority  of  cases  it  may 
be  freely  indulged,  as  to  amount,  without  any  kind 
of  danger,  if  only  the  reading  be  of  a  proper  sort. 

WHEN    TO    READ. 

"  Is  it  best  to  have  fixed  times   at  which  to  read  ?" 
asks  a  young  man  in  a  letter  now  lying  before  me. 
I  answer  Yes,  and  No. 
It  is  certainly  best  to  have  fixed  times  for  reading  i^ 


HOW  TO  STUDY  AND  READ.  143 

without  them,  the  reading  is  Hkely  to  be  neglected  to 
any  considerable  extent.  It  is  best  to  have  rules  for 
your  own  guidance  and  control  ^?/ow  need  them.  Other- 
wise, certainly  not. 

It  is  no  small  part  of  education  to  learn  to  govern 
one's  self,  but  that  self-government  which  accomplishes 
its  purpose  with  the  smallest  amount  of  law  is  best. 
Government  is  necessary  in  every  case,  but  the  freer  it 
can  have  its  subject  the  better  it  will  be  for  him. 

In  all  matters  of  this  sort,  therefore,  the  student 
should  proceed  as  best  he  can,  taking  care  first  that  his 
duties  to  himself  in  the  matter  of  study  and  reading  are 
fully  and  fairly  performed,  and  secondly,  that  he  remains 
as  largely  a  free  agent  as  is  consistent  with  the  accom- 
plishment of  this  end.  He  should  make  rules  for  him- 
self, and  enforce  them  strictly  too,  if  rules  are  necessary 
to  him,  but  if  he  can  perform  all  his  duties  to  himself 
without  limitations  of  this  kind,  it  will  be  far  better  not 
to  hedge  himself  about  with  self-imposed  and  unneces- 
sary statutes. 

THE   PKOPEB   TIME   OF   DAY   FOB   BEADING   AND    STUDY. 

As  to  what  is  the  proper  time  of  day  for  intellectual 
work  of  any  kind,  opinions  differ  largely  among  people 
who  have  strong  prejudices  or  preferences  in  the  matter 
— each  thinking  that  his  own  favorite  time  is  in  every 
way  the  best. 

Probably  habit  has  as  much  to  do  with  it  as  anything 
else,  in  most  cases  ;  and  suri'ounding  circumstances  or- 
dinarily determine  the  question  for  all  of  us. 

Except  that  the  health  should  be  carefully  guarded, 
the  best  possible  rule,  doubtless,  is  to  do  your  reading 


144  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

and  studying  when  you  can  do  it  best — in  the  morning 
— at  night — or  at  whatever  other  time  you  find  to  be 
the  best  in  your  own  case. 

It  is  important,  however,  to  learn  to  read,  to  study 
and  to  write  quite  as  well  in  the  midst  of  interruptions 
as  anywhere  else.  This  anybody  may  leai-n  to  do  with 
a  little  practice,  and  it  is  well  worth  the  learning,  even 
to  people  who  have  abundant  and  miinterrupted  lei- 
sure. 

THOUGHT   STUDY. 

During  all  our  waking  hours  we  are  thinking  of 
something.  The  moment  we  cease  to  thhik,  we  are 
asleep. 

This  fact  is  well  enough  known  to  everybody,  but  its 
lesson  is  not  always  learned.  We  go  on  thinking, 
thinking,  thinking,  but  how  many  of  us  make  a  system- 
atic effort  to  so  control  our  thoughts  as  to  make  them  of 
value  to  us  ? 

When  we  walk  in  the  streets,  or  ride  in  the  cars,  or 
do  anything  else  which  leaves  oui"  minds  free,  we  are 
very  apt  to  let  them  run  on  listlessly  from  one  subject 
to  another  without  care,  and  the  result  is  that  all  our 
thinking — all  this  wearing  hibor  of  our  brains  produces 
nothing  of  any  value  to  us,  except  it  be  by  accident. 

But  this  loss  of  intellectual  labor  is  not  the  only  ill 
result  of  allowing  the  thoughts  to  run  riot  among  tri- 
vialities. We  need  to  form  habits  of  self-control.  Such 
habits  constitute  at  least  half  of  culture,  and  their  ex- 
istence is  absolute!}'  necessary  to  the  accomplishment  oi 
anything  like  satisfactory  educational  results.  We 
must  control  our  intellectual  operations,  if  we  would 
train  om*  intellects  to  satisfactory  and  systematic  activ- 


HOW  TO   STUDY  AND  KEAD.  145 

ity,  and  there  is  notliing  so  fatal  to  such  control  as  ia 
this  habit  of  loose,  unguided,  random  thinking. 

The  mind  must  have  rest,  of  course,  but  the  rest 
comes  from  change  and  from  sleep — not  from  uncon- 
trolled and  useless  activity.  For  these  reasons  I 
strongly  urge  upon  the  student  the  habit  of  thought- 
study,  as  it  is  sometimes  called.  Let  him  always  have 
some  subject  or  other  ready  for  consideration,  and  when 
nothing  else  offers,  let  him  think  about  that,  taking  care 
that  his  thinking  shall  be  systematic.  Let  him  also 
cultivate  the  habit  of  self-control  to  such  an  extent  that 
he  may  dismiss  one  subject  and  take  up  another  at  wiU. 
Then  let  him  question  everything  about  him  for  inform- 
ation and  for  culture.  He  will  soon  find  that  he  can 
learn  quite  as  much  from  men  and  things  as  from 
books. 

As  a  rule,  it  is  better  that  we  should  observe  the  men 
and  the  things  about  us,  and  think  of  them,  than  that 
we  abstract  ourselves,  and  hence  it  is  best  to  keep  the 
chosen  subject  in  reserve  so  long  as  there  are  other 
things  at  hand  to  furnish  food  for  thought.  This  habit 
of  observing  our  surroundings  and  thinking  about 
them  furnishes  us  the  very  best  possible  object-lessons, 
and  it  is  this  very  habit  which  has  resulted  in  some  of 
the  greatest  of  human  achievements.  A  very  simple 
thing  indeed,  to  furnish  food  for  thought,  is  a  tea-kettle 
lid,  but  because  James  AVatt,  when  he  saw  it,  thought 
about  it,  we  have  now  our  steam-engine,  and  this  one 
man's  habit  of  object-study  advanced  the  civilization  oi 
the  world  incalculably.  History  is  full  of  just  such 
illustrations,  and  if  we  could  always  trace  these  things 
accurately,  we  should  almost  certainly  find  that  every 
man  who  accomplishes  anything  of  moment  to  himsell 


146        HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

or  to  tlie  world,  owes  Lis  success  to  habits  of  this  char- 
acter. 

There  are  other  mental  habits,  some  to  be  cultivated 
and  some  to  be  shunned,  and  these  for  the  most  part 
will  suggest  themselves  and  sufficiently  indicate  their 
natures  to  the  student  who  takes  himself  in  hand  for 
training.  One  or  two  of  them,  however,  may  be  men- 
tioned 

It  is  a  good  plan  to  doubt  and  investigate.  Doubt 
is  the  forerunner  of  wisdom,  and  there  is  no  worse 
habit  of  mind  than  that  which  prompts  the  easy  ac- 
ceptance of  professed  facts  without  proof.  Authority 
is  only  good  in  so  far  as  it  is  authority,  and  it  should 
be  accepted  no  farther.  When  I  read  in  my  chemistry 
that  oxygen,  hydrogen  and  carbon  are  elementary  sub- 
tances,  the  authoi*ity  of  the  eminent  chemist  who  tells 
me  this  is  sufficient  to  convince  me  that  this  is  a  cor- 
rect statement  of  the  fact  so  far  as  the  fact  is  under- 
stood by  the  chemists,  but  in  holding  myself  ready  to 
beheve  that  all  these  substances  may  after  all  be  com- 
pounds, and  may  ultimately  be  discovered  to  be  such, 
I  only  do  precisely  what  the  chemists  themselves  do, 
and  what  they  must  of  necessity  do  if  they  hope  to 
make  any  new  discoveries  in  theu'  science.  An  unrea- 
soning and  dogmatic  skepticism  is  as  bad  as  an  unrea- 
soning creduhty,  but  the  habit  of  holding  the  mind 
open  to  conviction,  and  the  habit  of  questioning  every- 
thing for  the  sake  of  learning  more  about  it  are  cer- 
tainly exceedingly  valuable  ones. 

Just  here  it  is  necessary  to  caution  the  reader 
against  a  bad  habit  into  which  a  good  many  people 
fall,  and  that  is  the  habit  of  accepting  the  statement  of 
a  puzzling  fact  and  trying  to  account-  for  it  befor^t  as- 


HOW  TO  STUDY  AND  BEAD.  147 

certaining  that  the  fact  is  as  it  is  stated,  or  in  any 
other  way  beginning  at  the  wrong  end  of  an  investiga- 
tion. 

There  is  an  old  story  of  a  puzzKng  question  as  to 
why  a  Hving  fish  put  into  a  vessel  of  water  does  not 
add  to  the  weight  of  the  whole.  A  good  deal  of 
speculation  was  had  on  the  subject  and  many  ingenious 
theories  advanced  by  way  of  explanation.  I  behave  it 
was  Dr.  Franklin  who  solved  it,  by  first  putting  a  liv- 
ing fish  into  a  vessel  of  water  to  learn  whether  or  not 
the  assumption  on  which  the  question  was  based  was  a 
true  one. 

The  Patent  Office  at  Washington  is  full  of  failures 
which  have  consumed  men's  hves  in  the  making,  and 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  they  are  failures  only  because 
their  inventors  omitted  to  examine  and  verify  the  terms 
of  the  problems  they  tried  to  solve. 

Every  sleight  of  hand  juggler  depends  upon  this  habit 
of  men's  minds  for  success  in  his  deceptions.  He  sets 
people  to  puzzling  over  seeming  facts  which  are  not 
facts  at  all,  and  they,  having  begun  at  the  wrong  end  of 
their  investigations,  might  continue  them  till  doomsday 
without  coming  a  step  nearer  to  the  truth  of  which 
they  are  in  search. 

I  have  sometimes  amused  myself  testing  the  question 
of  how  nearly  universal  this  habit  is.  There  is  an  ab- 
surdly simple  trick  with  cards,  which  ought  to  deceive 
nobody,  and  yet  it  wiU  deceive  about  eight  people  out  ol 
every  ten,  even  when  bunglingly  performed.  It  is  to 
arrange  a  pack  of  cards  with  the  three  spot  of  any  suite 
at  the  bottom,  and  then  to  give  the  person  with  whom 
you  are  experimenting  the  ace  of  that  suite,  bidding  him 
ehp  it  into  the  pack  as  it  lies,  face  downwards,  on  the 


148  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOURSELF. 

table.  When  be  sball  bave  done  this,  take  up  the  pack, 
hold  its  face  toward  you,  place  your  two  thumbs  over 
two  of  the  three  spots  on  the  card  next  to  you,  blow,  or 
Bay  something,  and  exhibit  the  ace  at  the  bottom  of  the 
pack.  Every  intelligent  man  must  know  that  this  card 
which  he  sees  cannot  possibly  be  the  ace  which  he  has 
just  slipped  into  another  place,  and  yet  I  have  seen  this 
simple  trick  performed  over  and  over  again  in  the  pres- 
ence of  intelligent  men  and  women,  every  one  of  whom 
would  set  about  finding  out  how  it  was  done,  not  one  of 
them  ever  thinking  to  inquire  whether  or  not  it  really 
was  done. 

Now,  this  is  precisely  what  we  all  do  every  day  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  and  as  the  habit  greatly  interferes 
with  successful  investigation  in  daUy  life,  I  have  thought 
it  worthy  of  notice  in  this  place. 

THE    APPOKTIONMENT   OF    TTMK 

A  great  deal  of  advice  has  been  wasted  on  the  subject 
of  apportionment  of  time  between  study,  work,  sleep, 
etc.  We  all  remember  Dr.  Franklin's  dictnm  on  the 
subject,  and  we  all  see  various  modifications  of  it  in  the 
newspapers  now  and  then. 

Now  if  there  were  no  other  reason  for  saying  that 
none  of  these  prearranged  schedules  are  worth  anything, 
we  should  find  amply  sufficient  justification  for  such  a 
remark  in  the  fact  that  hardly  any  two  people  agree  aa 
to  the  proportions  to  be  maintained.  Dr.  Franklia 
thought  six  hours  sleep  per  day  enough  for  a  man  ;  but 
Ml'.  Beecher,  who  does  quite  as  much  woi'k,  probably, 
as  Dr.  Franklin  did,  sleeps,  we  are  told,  twelve  hoais 
out  of  twenty-four  ordinarily,  and  never  denies  himself 
an  additional  "  forty  winks"  when  he  wauts  them. 


HOW  TO   STUDY  AND  READ.  149 

The  fact  seems  to  be  that  in  this,  as  in  everything  else, 
men  differ  materially  from  each  other.  Some  require 
more  sleep  than  others,  just  as  some  require  more  food. 
Some  can  stand  many  hours  of  continuous  labor,  while 
others  must  have  frequent  spells  of  resting. 

The  only  good  rule  in  such  a  case  is  for  each  student 
to  be  a  law  unto  himself.  There  is  no  extravagance  so 
disastrous  as  the  economy  which  denies  to  the  student 
any  needed  sleep,  whether  the  term  allotted  to  perfect 
rest  be  four  hours  or  twelve.  Get  all  the  sleep  you 
need, — eat  as  much  as  you  want, — and  never  continue 
your  studies  so  long  at  a  sitting  as  to  leave  yourself  with 
a  prostrated,  worn-out  feeUng,  as  the  result. 

Of  course  I  do  not  advise  unlimited  self-indulgence. 
We  must  be  masters  of  ourselves,  both  in  body  and 
mind,  if  we  would  accomplish  anything  in  life.  Reason 
must  be  our  guide,  and  reason  should  always  hold  su- 
premacy over  impulse.  But  if  we  wish  to  get  the  full- 
est measure  of  work  out  of  an  animal,  we  take  care  that 
he  has  rest  enough  and  food  enough  to  repair  all  waste. 
If  wc  have  machinery  at  work  for  us,  we  care  for  it  si- 
milarly, in  order  that  it  may  not  wear  out  and  cease  to 
be  of  service.  Now  this  is  precisely  what  we  must  do 
with  our  bodies  and  minds.  We  must  repair  their 
waste  places, — we  must  keep  them  in  working  order,  and 
give  them  rest  enough  and  food  enough  to  keep  up  their 
strength,  else  they  will  inevitably  break  down,  more  or 
less  entirely. 

But  in  the  matter  of  rest,  a  good  deal  of  time  may  be 
saved  by  a  httle  care.  Change  is  in  itself  rest,  and  it 
often  serves  the  piu'pose  better  than  an  attempted  ces- 
sation fi'om  work  would.  When  one  is  greatly  interest- 
ed in  the  work  in  hand,  it  is  very  often  impossible  to 


150  HOW  TO  EDUCATE  YOUIISELF. 

dismiss  it  at  once  from  the  mind,  and  to  simply  quit 
tlie  reading  of  a  book  is  not  always  to  rest  from  the 
reading.  The  subject  is  still  in  the  mind,  and  the  mind 
works  at  it  quite  as  actively  without  the  book  as  with 
itb  It  is  always  best,  where  this  is  the  case,  if  rest  is 
needed,  to  take  up  some  book  of  a  wholly  different  char- 
acter for  a  while  before  ceasing  to  read  entii'ely,  so  that 
the  mind  may  be  drawn  away  fiom  the  matter  with 
which  it  is  wearied. 

There  are  many  times,  too,  when  it  is  not  necessary 
to  quit  work  at  all — times  when  a  simple  change  of 
work  gives  ail  the  rehef  the  mind  needs,  and  a  httie  at- 
tention to  this  fact  will  make  it  a  great  economizer  of 
time. 

HOW   MANY   STUDIES   SHOUU)   BE   CAKBIED    ON   AT   ONCE? 

There  is  considerable  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the 
nvmiber  of  studies  that  should  be  pursued  at  once.  In 
the  colleges  the  niimber  usually  prescribed  is  from  thi*ee 
to  five,  and  I  am  certainly  not  prepared  to  say  that  five 
are  too  many  or  three  too  few  ;  but  I  have  known  stu- 
dents to  accomplish  most  excellent  results  by  taking  a 
single  branch  and  pushing  it  thi'ough  to  the  end  of  the 
coufse  before  taking  up  another.  I  have  known  others 
to  carry  on  as  many  as  nine  separate  studies  at  once, 
doing  thoroughly  well  in  all.  The  result  in  the  end 
was  as  good  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other. 

Probably  the  safest  plan  is  to  accept  the  college  cus- 
tom as  the  proper  rule  in  the  matter,  and  to  regard 
tiiese  cases  as  successful  exceptions.  Certainly,  there 
are  objections  to  either  extreme,  and  the  more  moder- 
ate thi-ee,  four  or  live  studies  furnish  enough  of  variety 
to  enable  the  student  to  rest  by  changing  fiom  one  to 


HOW  TO  STUDY  AND  READ.  151 

the  other,  while  they  do  not  weaken  his  attention  by 
dividing  it  too  much. 

After  all,  the  student  cannot  do  better  than  attend  to 
the  teachings  of  the  colleges  in  details  of  this  charac- 
ter, and  where  their  practice  is  at  all  uniform  it  will 
generaUy  be  found  to  represent  the  best  plan  of  pro- 
cedure even  for  the  student  without  a  master. 


TBIE  SSD 


''        Putnam  s    Handy. Book    Series. 


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A.RD 
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To- 

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'■  Shre^vd,  si     !  '  aiid  erterti..  .:     .'-     ">  .  ','.       fihtine. 

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